


Lùchapâlh (Those that make haste)

by bubbysbub



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: A sort of suspenseful thriller fix-it, Alternate Ending, Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Big Bang Challenge, Gold Sickness, Guaranteed happy ending, M/M, Set after Smaug departs Erebor, derails canon, or very suspenseful, which is neither very thrilling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3972004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbysbub/pseuds/bubbysbub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo starts to suspect almost immediately that something is wrong in the mountain, what with how odd his Dwarrow are behaving, and that strange feeling like movement and watchful eyes lurking in the ominous dark of empty caverns. Not to mention the entirely strange statues every which way one turns. </p><p>It doesn't take long for the Company of Thorin Oakenshield to realise that they are trapped in the mountain and in a very perilous situation, and that Smaug's protections still lay heavy on the hoard. All they can do is run, and hope they can find a way to break the curse on their mountain, before they lose everything they set out to claim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, my submission to Hobbit Story Big Bang is here! Eep! This is my first Big Bang, and I am not sure I have measured up appropriately in terms of quality... oh dear. 
> 
> I have been blessed with three IMENSELY talented artists this year. drakyrna, theindianwinter, and teaxdragon are the names to look for on tumblr. I believe art is going up soon. Keep an eye out! *dances in excitement*
> 
> The format of this is a bit different for me, as I was attempting something different. I hope it is not too confusing. I would be very pleased to hear what you thought of the back and forth thing.
> 
> As always, dearest Beta-Beth has done all the beta work, and all the mistakes still here are me fiddling after she's done. Cheer that woman on, peeps, for what she has to put up with... lols. She rocks!
> 
>  
> 
> **EDIT: It has come to my attention that some of this fic could be triggering to some. The Thorin in this story begins as quite gold sick, and is not in his right mind. He does not levy physical abuse at anyone, and there is not much in the way of verbal abuse, but he is erratic, and the behaviour could be upsetting for some people. It does not persist the whole fic, but if these things are likely to cause you emotional distress, it would be best that you give this one a miss. I would much prefer it. Feel free to contact me if you are unsure.**

**\--Now--**

They were all going to die here.

There was no escaping this wretched mountain. Those things were coming, and they were all going to die.

Their dim lamp flickered and went out again, and somewhere in the dark behind Bilbo, Bofur gave a choked sob, and Óin's hand tightened around Bilbo's with a gasp.

They ran.

 

**\--Then--**

Bilbo was tired. 

Bone deep, soul drained, tired.

They'd only been here two days, and Bilbo was already well and truly done with this mountain. His Dwarrows seemed content enough, rifling through the ridiculously large pile of gold that took up the bulk of the main chamber, although they were all looking a little... stunned.

They had a right to be stunned funny. They had finally accomplished what they had come all this way to do. They'd actually _done it_. They Company had reclaimed Erebor for the Dwarves of the West!

Sort of. 

Smaug was gone, at least.

Personally, Bilbo was convinced that it wasn't that easy, but although he was terrified that Smaug would return at any minute to smash through and kill them all, and was sick in his stomach at the thought of what was happening to the people of Laketown, he was altogether far too tired to really summon the appropriate measure of emotion to deal with the moment.

He was tired. And Smaug had not returned yet. May never return. Who knew? But even the exhaustion and the fear of death-by-incineration weren't really the main cause of Bilbo's discomfort, though.

There was something _off_ about this place. None of his Dwarrows had said anything, indeed, although they were acting quite peculiarly around all this gold, they seemed.... happy. In a manic sort of way. So for all that Bilbo knew it could be a quite normal feeling sort of Mountain, and he himself, being a normal sort of Hobbit- if a little too adventurous for his own good sometimes- was wholly unsuited for mountain dwelling. Whether it was or not was neither here nor there, since all his Dwarves were far too busy playing in piles of jewels and sparkly things to tell him either way, and Bilbo was loath to bring it up. Quite likely with the way they were right now -gleeful with a sharp edge of maliciousness- they'd take offence or start another nasty song about his Hobbitly timidity, and he was in no mood for either.

So whether he liked this place or not, he was stuck here, for although he really did not want to be in this room full of treasure, spoils of the dead and desolate, he really really _really_ did not want to be out lingering in the dark and quiet halls, with the crumbling walkways and sinkholes of doom, and most disturbingly, the statues.

He shuddered.

He'd thought, at first, that they were in fact, just statues, strange and eerie though they were, and while he had idly acknowledged how odd he found it for them to be _everywhere_ , he'd just assumed it a Dwarrow thing and not thought much of it, far too concerned with the prospect of burgling a bloody gem from a dragon. It was only after, when the dragon was gone and he was starting to note how terribly odd some of the stone figures were, that he had seen the sorrow of his companions.

Óin had been the one to explain to him, the others too overwhelmed to dare. Dwarrows were different to other species. While the fire from the mouth of a dragon burnt most other species to ash, Dwarrows were of the stone, and to stone they would return, even by way of dragon fire.

Perhaps he was a fool coward of a hobbit, but he found statues that were not _statues_ , but _people_ , victims of Smaug’s rampage, burned hot and furious.... it was disturbing.

Especially as the dark and the odd spaces, and the long tunnels with strange echoes often made him feel that things were moving in the dark, and with the vague sensation of eyes on him, something in the dark watching him wandering about, a stranger in this place of stone, it all left him jittering and jumping, gaze seeking out danger not there- memories of a twisted wretched creature in another mountain still fresh in his memory. The glittering blackness that had once been real Dwarf eyes did not help, and only added to the terrible feel of beings lurking and watching, waiting for him to be taken off his guard.

It was foolish, but it only added to his discomfort, and he would like nothing better to be rid of this whole blasted mountain, perhaps back in Laketown, if he could not be in his Shire, by a warm fire with a good flagon of something for his nerves, and a meat pie as big as his own head. And a bed. Oh, his father's prized peonies for a decent bed.

With hours and hours of odd golden glow in his vision, however, and chilled to the bone and shaking with sweats- how could it be cold and stifling all at once?- and so desperate for someplace other than hip-deep treasure, he found himself quite without sense, and drifted off down a hall, skirting carefully around great looming not-statues, shivering and trying not to look at the fierce stances and brandished weapons of the Dwarrows-made-stone.

He paused in a crosswalk, and blearily assessed his options. He was fairly certain he took the right hand path up to reach the gate outside. Blasted, confounding mountain.

Bilbo sighed deeply, rubbing at his eyes in exhaustion. By the green fields he was tired!

"Bilbo," Thorin said to the left of him, and Bilbo snapped around, not hearing him come up the walk.

Thorin was standing in front of one of those poor burned dwarf statues, and the thing was reaching, though what it could have been reaching for at the moment of death, Bilbo had no idea. From this angle, it did looked disturbingly as if it was about to grab a hold of Thorin by the hair.

Bilbo shook his head at the foolish thought, clenching his eyes shut for a minute and looked again, jumping slightly to find Thorin so much closer and not have heard him move. 

He was so very tired.

Thorin was staring at him. His eyes glowed oddly in the light of the funny lamps the dwarrows had all lit after Smaug had flown off and not come back, and his hair was a mess; not his usual mess that was far too attractive and very distracting, but a mess that was of frustrated tugging and disinterest in personal upkeep. And although his uncouth bunch of Dwarrows were an unhygienic bunch, they did spend a large amount of time on their hair, taking pride in every strand in the ridiculous great manes. Even Thorin. Seeing his braids half unravelled and one of his clasps from the back missing and the other half-dangling, with snarls and tangles hanging about, well. 

There was something wrong about this place. With his Dwarrows. And with that cursed gold.

He already hated this place and all its miserable treasure.

"All those months ago," Thorin said softly, absently, "I hired you to burgle me an Arkenstone. Yet you haven't brought me an Arkenstone, yet."

"You hired me to burgle you gold," Bilbo said crossly, backing away from Thorin's odd eyes and his disturbing hair. "And instead, you have the whole mountain, full of treasure, and with plenty of time to find your stone. One would think you would be grateful!"

"As I am," Thorin said, and there, for a moment, he pouted, face hurt and gentled from the harshness of before. "I thought you would be with us, searching and looking through the treasure."

Bilbo sighed loudly, leaning back against the wall of the passage for a moment. 

"I need good fresh air. Just a little time at the gate, that's all."

"Nobody is searching," Thorin said, tone petulant, bewildered, and his face was twisted with plain confusion.

It was... every time Bilbo looked at him lately, it was like looking at a different person. Thorin was _different_ ; this mountain had changed him, was changing them all. 

"Everybody _is_ searching," Bilbo insisted, and stepped forward, taking Thorin by the arm. "Come to the gate with me. Get some fresh air, away from all that gold."

Belligerence crossed Thorin's features at the word 'gold', but the touch of Bilbo's hand on his arm seemed to wipe it away, and he shook his head as if to clear it, and then nodded and followed Bilbo along the passage to the opening.

Near the great doorway that was the opening to the gate, however, Thorin stopped and grasped Bilbo's arm, stopping him just shy of the doorway.

"This is close enough, surely?" he said, gripping the back of Bilbo's coat to stop him before he could reach the last light of the setting sun.

"What-? No. This is most certainly not far enough," he said, pulling himself free and stepping into the warm glow, out and away from the stone over his head, and out under clear sky and gentle wind. Finally, relief from the stagnant stifling chill, that always seemed to leave a thin layer of sweat over his entire body. 

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, breathing deep. It was so _good_ out here; real sunlight and fresh breeze, and finally the unrelenting pressure of unpleasantness hammering in his head eased. He took big grateful gulps of air, savouring it while he could. The air in the treasury was stagnant and metallic and with an odd edge of rancidity. This was fresh air, and it was glorious.

A moment of silence, and he found himself turning back to the tunnel to check if Thorin was still present, so quiet was his companion. In the little light from the balcony, and mostly shadow from the tunnel, Thorin looked lost and somewhat small. The hair didn't help, looking much like a small child spent too much time running amok and now tired and in need of a good bath and a groom. 

"Come out and get some sun," Bilbo prompted, holding a hand out for the silly Dwarrow that was quite becoming inexplicably important to Bilbo. 

Thorin stared at him for such a long time, but Bilbo was an obstinate sort of fellow, and eventually Thorin let himself step from the shadows and join Bilbo on the battlements, tilting his head back into the last of the day's sunshine, looking quite like a great big cat in the way his neck arched and his lids fell most of the way closed, a deep noise of surprise and contentment rising from his chest.

Bilbo smiled and turned his face into the last of the sun, focusing on his own contentment, and the warm steadiness of Thorin's big hand wrapped around his own.

"I feel as if I can scarcely breathe in there," Thorin said suddenly, quietly. Wearily. He looked it, too; weary and small and a little bit frightened, and Bilbo squeezed the hand in his own, not entirely sure what to say.

"We'll get it aired out," he said, a little stupidly. "And it will be fine. You'll see."

"It doesn't feel right," Thorin said, and swallowed hard, and Bilbo realised that Thorin was swallowing against tears, his eyes shining too brightly in the remaining glow of day. "I'm a fool, Bilbo. Decades, over a century I've been dreaming of returning to this mountain, and all this time, I've never accepted the way of what I would truly be returning to."

"Way of what?" Bilbo asked gently after a moment, when Thorin did not continue immediately.

Thorin shook his head, teeth gritted and eyes shut tightly. Finally, he seemed steady enough to speak, though his voice shook when he did.

"It will never be like it was," he admitted. "I just wanted to come home. But it isn't like it was. _I'm_ not like I was. And I never can be again."

"Thorin..."

"I can't ever go home, not ever again. It's gone."

Bilbo abandoned words. Oh, it hurt to hear Thorin speak like he was broken, like every conviction he had was falling into ruin around him, and there were no words that could possibly help. So Bilbo turned and moved in and wrapped his arms around Thorin's shoulders and tugged him close and held him tight.

Thorin's breath was a shuddering noise into his shoulder, but he rested his head against Bilbo's and let his hands rest around Bilbo in return, and they stood for a long time, till the sun was gone and the stars emerged, and Bilbo stirred at last.

"I promised to help you regain your home, Thorin, and that isn't a promise I intend to break," he said, and Thorin shuddered hard.

"But it's gone."

"Home isn't really a place, Thorin," he said, shifting far enough back to force Thorin to lift his head and look at him. "I know that is an odd thing for me to say, coming from a Hobbit that has done nothing this whole arduous journey but quite vocally long for the walls of his home, and drive you all mad with my waxing and moaning on about it!" And there, that got him a bare bones of a smile, a glimmer of the wonderful Dwarrow Bilbo knew.

"The truth of it is, my armchair is the place my father sat me on his knee by the fire and talked of his day, and his voice will always be home. My books are my mother's, adventure and excitement all read to me by the fire, voice animated and eyes bright with the joy of discovery, and I find her in those pages. My home, my knick knacks and old furniture and empty rooms, all of it is memories and lingering traces of what used to be. But it never will be what I remember again. That's alright though."

"How can that be alright?" Thorin asked, eyes slipping away to rest on Bilbo's shoulder, unwilling to meet the Hobbit's gaze.

"Because sometimes home can be found in the oddest of places. Like in my cousins pilfering my tarts from my pantry cupboard, chasing them down the lane and promising dire consequences at the top of my lungs, their laughter trailing behind them and forcing a smile to my face. Sometimes I stumble across home in a good meal with a treasured neighbour, belly full, toes warm, and friendly faces echoing my contentment. And sometimes, home is by a miserable scrap of a fire, with Dwarves fighting over who tipped the spit over and singing songs not meant for polite company, but familiar, and safe, and joy in the shared experience. Sometimes home is a wizard's smoke rings in your face when you're trying to saddle your pony, or good mead served by a great bear skin-changer, comfort in the oddest of moments. Hobbits value comfort, don't you know? And there is no greater comfort than that of people dear to your heart."

Thorin was so very tense under his hands, shaking slightly, and still refusing to make eye contact with him.

"I'll help, Thorin. I'll help you find home here again. With the Company, and with your family, and your people. It can be a place you treasure again. Not the same, but home nonetheless."

Thorin said nothing for a very long time, though he allowed Bilbo to stay so close to him, petting his shoulders, and gently trying to smooth his hair back into some sense of order. Finally, he nodded jerkily, resignation settling about him like a cloak, and Bilbo wondered if Thorin had not really heard what he had been trying to say at all.

"Come back to the doorway?" Thorin suddenly pleaded, dragging Bilbo with him as he stumbled across the stone walk. He gasped when he hit the inside air, and Bilbo shuddered, right down to his toes. This was no good place to make a home. Not yet. There was something so very wrong here, and Bilbo had to discover what it was, if he was to keep his promise and help make Thorin a home.

No matter how determined he was to help, though, he wasn't quite ready to go back to the room full of treasure, that glowed in the strangest of ways that pierced his eyes with it's sharpness and that strained him from the dimness and made his head threaten to burst from pressure, where the air was frigidly cold and stubbornly still and left him sweaty and clammy and shaking, where his Dwarrows’ faces were lit with a grim delight that made them almost unrecognisable as his dear companions in the flickering of the lamps. He could not go back to that just yet, no matter how tired he was- and how much he may be able to convince Thorin to allow them all a nap.

"We can go inside," he told Thorin, "but I need a little longer. Just a little more time. Mountain caves are so odd to a Hobbit."

Thorin nodded, but the Thorin of just a few minutes ago was almost gone again, once more frowning impatiently and with the slight air of arrogant aggression about him, though he watched Bilbo with sharp, intently assessing eyes. Bilbo shivered, and edged closer to the open air again. There was something wrong with this mountain.

"Careful now," Thorin warned, voice low and sharp, and falling flat of the humour he might have been trying for, judging by the mean little grin. "You linger outside my walls, I may lock you out."

"Oh?" Bilbo said, attempting a slightly amused, inoffensive tone, but quite aware of the quiver in his voice. "The gates are out there. Going to toss me over?"

"The main gates are out there," Thorin agreed, but he reached over Bilbo's shoulder, to smooth over a series of runes carved into the rock. "But Dwarrows have been known to be completely reclusive, you know. There are times when we have shut down our mountain completely, sealed so tight that no outsider can even find the door."

Bilbo shrank back against the wall, breath unsteady in the face of Thorin's glee over his discomfort. 

"And why didn't you do that when Smaug came?" he said, again aiming for light, but sounding far too accusing, which Bilbo immediately regretted. Thorin's face morphed to thunderous glaring.

"We had no time. He was upon us before we could lock our mountain down from his plunder. It is... one of my regrets," Thorin admitted, and there, there was Thorin again, his honourable Dwarf speaking plainly to Bilbo. "I came here, to the gates, but I was too late. He forced his way in, killed so many, and I... was too late."

"I am almost certain that none of this," Bilbo waved a hand about them, "was your fault. Dragons are forces of the darkness of this world. No person could ever fault you for any part of the downfall of your people."

Had anybody ever told Thorin anything like that? Surely. Surely the sister that Thorin had spoken shyly of to him in Laketown, or his cousins, as Bilbo had discovered some members of the Company to be, somebody surely would have at some stage told Thorin that nothing, none of the suffering of his people was Thorin's fault. One would hope. Yet Thorin looked gutted, lost all over again. 

By all that was good, Bilbo _hated_ this mountain, and what it had done to his Thorin. What it was doing to him. To all of them. 

"Why don't we close it now?" Bilbo asked. "Close down the mountain in case Smaug comes back?"

"Can't," Thorin said raggedly. "I know how to close it, but I don't know how to open it again. I never learned. We'd be trapped in here."

"Why wouldn't you know how to open it?" Bilbo asked, gaping at what he saw as quite the absurdity.

"This is sacred Dwarrow magic, Bilbo. It requires the right words, and the right _thoughts_ to open, and to shut. Grandfather taught me how to lock the mountain down to protect it, but never how to open it again. They never got to that. I think father knew how, and the magic workers could, but they're all gone now. They assumed that any danger could be defended against, and one of them would be here to open the mountain when the danger was past."

"Oh," Bilbo said stupidly, and nothing more. Thorin looked exhausted again, and Bilbo felt a pang run through him at the sight.

"How about we go and get some sleep, hmm?" he asked cautiously, and Thorin stared at him in confusion. "Night has fallen. A little food and a rest, and we will have clearer heads to search."

"I have to search," Thorin said, but he sounded more resigned than insistent, and Bilbo took one last breath of free air, and gently took Thorin's arm, leading him back towards the others, stomach dropping as they walked away from the exit. Thorin let himself be led.

Once they had reached the treasury again, though, Thorin strode off back to his gold, kicking through piles of gems and jewels with the renewed fervour of tightly reined fury. Bilbo sighed, slinking across to where Bifur was stirring a cookpot of what smelt like smoked fish even as he twitched and muttered at the slightest movement around him. 

"Alright there, Bifur?" he asked quietly watching Thorin yell at nobody in particular. Bifur made a noise that was not a whimper, but was loaded with apprehension, and Bilbo patted him carefully on the shoulder. 

"Yes, I know," he said, before he turned back to the door they had entered through, near their 'camp spot', such as it was, on a wide step above the gold. 

"Do you think that shuts?" he asked nobody in particular, that strange sensation of watchful things in the dark making shivers run up and down his back.

"It does," Balin replied from behind him, wearily wandering up to the top step where Bilbo hovered. "Dinner soon, Bifur?"

Bifur grunted an affirmative, and Bilbo fidgeted where he stood, staring at the black shadows within the stone doorway, right by where they had dumped their bedrolls.

"Then may we shut it, Balin?" he asked with a little urgency. He'd just walked that very passage way, but the gaping door gave him the shivers, and he wanted nothing more than to shut every door leading into the entire room.

Thorin would probably not appreciate that. He would not appreciate _anything_ at the moment.

Balin turned his attention to Bilbo properly, and then the door, and it did not take him very long at all to nod seriously and his body to snap to wakeful watchfulness. 

"Aye, I think we had better," he agreed, and made his way over. Bilbo did not see much of what Balin was doing, view blocked by the elder's body, but there was a dull clank and a shift, and a door slid smoothly into place, shutting with barely a sound, and Balin hesitated only briefly before pulling some sort of lever-shaped bar _out_ from the door and down into place, locking the door shut tight.

"There," he said, turning back to Bilbo. "Always makes for a better sleep with solid rock at your back, eh lad?"

"Yes, that's... yes. Thank you, Balin."

Balin nodded, brow creased a little, and stepped back to Bifur, taking one of the bowls of ladled stew, and wandered off to sit on another step, eyes on Thorin fumbling with a pile of bits and pieces.

Bilbo really hated this mountain.

There was nothing to be done, though, except to swallow down the meagre meal and take his blankets to the wall, wrapping himself up and covering his head so he did not have to see the faces of his companions as strangers in the horrible glow of gold.

It took him a long time to sleep.

 

**\--Now--**

Balin was gone. Bilbo had heard him cry out in the last dash for freedom, before Nori had managed to break through a door and lead them in a mad dash down a thin tunnel, and Bilbo tried to hope, he really did. 

Dwalin was sobbing, Óin and Glóin holding him tight between them and hands wrapped over his mouth to quiet the sound of his pained tears, and prevent him from crying out for his brother, and Bofur and Bombur were huddled in a corner, past the louder stages of their grief, now. They had lost Bifur a few hours before, when they'd been crawling through an aqueduct system to avoid a meeting hall with too many doorless entrances. Nobody had even noticed until they were through.

In the soft light of their rekindled lantern, Thorin's face was awash with pain, twisted in grief, biting down hard on his lip, and Bilbo slipped forward to huddle with him and the lads.

A noise up the tunnel and they tensed, and Dori threw open the next door, all of them stumbling through, and piling what bits they found on the other side against it, before they ran again.

 

**\--Then--**

Digging in gold. What fun, Bilbo thought dully, shifting a few more coins aside. Digging for a gem in a field of gems and stupid, stupid gold.

He sighed deeply in frustration.

One gem was surely just as good as another? Red, blue, green, who really cared? Cold and hard and not really good for anything, if you asked Bilbo. Which nobody did.

This particular important gem they sought, though, was apparently _white_. He'd found many, _many_ white gems over the last several hours, and received expressions of pure disgust for the presentation of each. No no, it was big! A large white gem, that shone with a great inner light of beauty. That was the description he had to work with. Oh, and 'pride of my grandfather's reign', 'prize of the Longbeards of Erebor' and 'proof of my divine right to rule'. 

(Bilbo may have made the mistake of snottily asking if said jewel came with these particular details written on it anywhere, and received a look of absolute fury for his troubles.)

Oh, the headache he had at this moment. Gold was a poor light source, gleaming and reflecting what meagre lamplight there was in the worst of ways, but the Dwarrows were having no problem at all, and their supplies were limited, so there really was nothing Bilbo could do about it. He'd already scampered up to the gate for a breath of fresh air once today, hurrying as fast as he could past crumbling holes in the floor from a dragon's rampage, entries to long winding tunnels of darkness, and the strange frozen stone bodies of Dwarrows long gone, feeling the weight of phantom gaze on his back as he ran past them like the scared little ninny he was.

Thorin was unlikely to tolerate him running off again.

Thorin. That dwarf! Bilbo heaved a great sigh and sat back, tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the sight of gold. It only made it easier to hear the mutterings of the Dwarrow on his mind, though, and his stomach lurched unpleasantly.

Bilbo would be quite the fool to pretend that Thorin did not have a special place in his heart. He really had not meant for that to happen, and truly, he wasn't entirely sure _when_ such a thing had occurred, but it was there. He could be rude, he could be arrogant, rash, impatient and haughty, but he was generally noble and kind-hearted and devoted to the well being of his entire clan, shy when confronted with affection and heartbreakingly confused by kindness. He loved wholly and unreservedly, and treasured his family. He was confusing and contrary and should be the furthest thing from an ideal mate for a Hobbit, but he was in Bilbo's heart, infuriating as it was.

They _all_ were, such wretched beasts as existed as these Dwarrow. Friends and dear family, they had all become. This mountain scared him down to his very being, some large part being how different his family were behaving. Even Fíli and Kíli were not the lads that had played tricks and gotten themselves in far too much trouble trying to prove their mettle, but subdued and focused a lot of the time, past the point of whooping and hollering over the gold, throwing fistsfull of coins at each other and trying on the grandest of the jewellery they could find. Now, they only searched for this wretched gem, focused and silent, and although Bilbo knew they worshipped their beloved Uncle and would tear the mountain apart to please him, their demeanour did not suit the persons Bilbo knew them to be. 

Something was very wrong with the mountain.

His digging hand hit something large enough to possibly suit the requirements of the blasted Arkenstone, and Bilbo pulled the piece loose from the pile and eyed it dubiously. It was certainly very pretty, and large, and white.... well, white _ish_. It had a distinctive blue tone. But it shone brightly in the lamplight. Perhaps it was ...?

Well, better to check than to be berated later for tossing aside the jewel they were after. He clutched the thing to his chest and pushed to his feet, groaning at the click of his back from hours bent over these useless mathoms.

Thorin had abandoned his own rifling through treasure. He'd found what was apparently his Grandfather's armour, and although it was grand, it did not suit Thorin at all. Perhaps to a stranger that did not know him, he cut a fine figure of a Dwarrow, but to Bilbo, it was an ill fit and was altogether too showy, and still not nearly grand enough for the true King Bilbo knew him to be. And the silly sword he had found! While it may be a fine Dwarven sword of wonderful material, or some such nonsense, he held it with none of the grace and skill he had held his elvish find, Orcrist, lost in Mirkwood. His movements as he swung the thing back and forth in agitation were jerky and slightly off balance, and Bilbo's fist tightened around the latest gem find at the sight. 

Thorin had moved to another grand stair leading into the treasury and climbed to the top of a giant fallen corbel, one that had no doubt come down when Smaug had first smashed his way in, and it all but blocked the doorway but elevated Thorin far above the others to watch them suspiciously, hiding him, too, when he muttered and stalked off to the shadows around the almost hidden door, and honestly, how many doors did one need into a treasure room? One would think it would be better secured, the way Dwarves hovered so jealously over all this useless glittering metal and rock. But, doors all around, there were, and odd pillars, and recesses and stairs and columns. For all Bilbo knew, all this architecture was necessary to keep the whole mountain top from caving in atop them, but it seemed so very showy to Bilbo.

He backed up a little to better see Thorin up the little ledge of the corbel he had wandered to, waving his sword still, and peering suspiciously at each member of the Company and glaring if they did not seem to him to be searching hard enough for his silly heart thingummy. Perhaps Bilbo would just keep this gem atop a pile, and sort contenders into a collection until Thorin was in a better mood, if he seemed too agitated to call too. He moved over to see Thorin a little better, hidden in the shadowy recess he was mumbling in, and frowned.

He hadn't realised one of those poor petrified souls was in the room with them. Bilbo did not remember seeing a statue there, but he could see the shadow of it there, behind Thorin, it's now-stone sword raised in a long useless strike against a dragon that had burned it to dead rock instead. He'd quite thought that Thorin would not be so comfortable pacing and mumbling about what was essentially a corpse of one of his beloved people, when he had been so sorrowed when they had first arrived, but perhaps this was another change. That he did not even care for respecting the departed now.

From this angle, the shadow seemed to loom out of the darkness, an indistinct profile shuddering and moving with the odd flickering of one of the lamps gently swinging back and forth. Larger than life, an indistinct darkness, massive and bearing down upon his poor Dwarf, poised to strike at his Thorin, his Thorin that was bedraggled and dressed up in gold like a child playing at costumes, defenceless despite the armour and sword, and Bilbo's chest tightened at the vision. 

"Thorin!" he called, and blinked, immediately feeling like a fool for being so frightened by an image that had disappeared as fast as he had imagined seeing it. But Thorin was already turning and looking for him, and moving forward to come down. And now that he had moved, Bilbo could quite see that there was no statue on the ledge, or in the doorway behind where Thorin had stood, and even the shadows had shifted in the sway of the lantern and showed none of the sort, and Bilbo silently berated himself for jumping at shadows where there was no danger to come.

"Did you find it?" Thorin asked, striding unsteadily across the sliding treasure.

"Umm, I'm not sure?" Bilbo stuttered, holding the jewel out hesitantly.

Thorin stared at it for a minute, before his hand swung out and knocked the jewel flying, face furious.

"That you could even think such a paltry thing could compare to the beauty of the Arkenstone of my forefathers-"

"Well _how am I to know_ , Thorin?" Bilbo snapped, suddenly furious. "I am no Dwarf, and one jewel looks as like as another to me! I- surely there is something more helpful I could be doing, because I am _useless_ at this."

Thorin said nothing, but stared at him in surprise, and Bilbo swiped one weary hand over his face.

"Why don't we go for a walk to the gate again? We can get some air and you can describe the Arkenstone to me a bit more, so I will recognise it." Thorin looked torn, eyes straying to the door that was open again, the shadowy door out to the balcony. "That crown looks heavy," Bilbo said quietly. "Why not take it off a while? Walk with me."

Thorin blinked at him, and slowly nodded, the sword sagging in his limp hand, reaching up to remove the crown from his head. He hesitated then, though, and looked at Bilbo accusingly.

"You have to keep searching," he said, voice and sword rising again. "All of you need to keep searching. _Find my Arkenstone!_ "

Barely any of the Company even looked up, Bilbo noticed. He also noticed, quite worryingly, Ori was sitting on a pile and looking about himself as if he didn't even know where he was, and Balin had abandoned searching and was pacing atop another ledge of downed stone and muttering furiously. Bilbo sank back onto the gold, hands digging in without even looking, eyes shutting in exhaustion.

There was something very wrong in this mountain.

 

**\--Now--**

The cavern they had run through had been unstable. They hadn't known it, obviously, or they would not have run that way. They'd almost been across, and through to the next passage. Thorin was sure it was this way, and they were almost there, he had said. They just had to keep running. 

The floor had collapsed under Kíli.

Bilbo had heard the scream, and dared to look back, just in time to see Kíli disappear from sight, falling down, down into the dark as the stone under his feet seemed almost to disappear down into the darkness. Fíli's yell had been desperate and anguished, and he hadn't even hesitated to dive after him, tumbling unsteadily down after in a shower of crumbling rock. Dwalin swung about and flung himself at the door they had just come through, slamming it shut and jamming himself against it while they had all rushed to the gaping sinkhole in the floor.

The lads were gone.

The hole was too deep, too far down for there to be any hope. They did not answer calls, and no light could go deep enough to penetrate that far into the dark to determine their fate, and Thorin sobbed and sobbed over the hole, calling and calling. 

A great hammering came at the door, though, like many bodies throwing themselves against it, and an axe split through the wood, burying itself an inch into Dwalin's armour and into the flesh of his shoulder below it, and he roared with pain, but kept himself braced tight, even as a spear ripped through the door and narrowly missed his head.

"We have to go!" Bilbo yelled desperately, yanking on Thorin, half dragging him to the door at the opposite side. If Thorin did not leave, Dwalin would stay at the door, and he would not survive much longer holding it as he was. But Thorin was stuck hovering over the hole in the floor, sobbing out useless pleas, and Dori darted back and grabbed his other side, helping Bilbo shove him across and through into the next passageway.

"Dwalin, come on!" Bilbo yelled, letting Glóin take over his side of Thorin to rush him forward, and ran back to grab Dwalin as he stumbled, clutching at his shoulder.

"It's not deep," Dwalin gasped, as he and Bilbo came through the next entry way and slammed the door shut behind them. Together they manhandled a heavy decorative stone sculpture to shove in front of the door and raced after the others down the latest hallway.

"We'll need to bind it anyway," Bilbo wheezed as they raced down the hall after the little lamp that showed them where the others were. "You're leaking, and they may be able to track it."

So far they had gotten lucky, racing away when they were found and hiding for a few minutes here and there to catch their breath. If they could only reach the Zarârgharâf!

He almost kept running, after throwing himself around the frame after the bobbing little light, until he noticed that Dwalin had stopped dead in his tracks just before the door into the next hall.

"What?" Bilbo asked, eyes darting about for what could have put that expression on the warriors face.

"You're right. They could track us from the blood," Dwalin said, gesturing to the splatter trailing off behind him, blood still leaking steadily down to pitter-patter about him.

"I'll bind it," Bilbo said, already working at the fastenings of his tunic. He could take if off and tie it around the shoulder, which would stem it for a short while.

Dwalin shook his head, though, and backed away, groping for the door.

"I can lead them off. Go."

"What? No!" Bilbo insisted, throwing himself back towards Dwalin, but the burly warrior was too quick, and slammed the door shut, barring it from the other side.

"Dwalin, you open this door, right now!" Bilbo yelled, hammering at the barrier, when the handle would not turn and the door refused to budge. 

"Go! Thorin needs you," Dwalin said, voice muffled and Bilbo whimpered. He was going to lose another one to this cursed mountain. He wasn't sure if he could do this much longer!

"Thorin needs you too, Dwalin. You'll break his heart. Please!"

There was no response from the other side, only silence, and Bilbo waited breathlessly for long, long moments, until finally, the sound of boot steps on stone hurrying away came through the door, and Bilbo gave another few useless heaves against the door, before his head hit the door in anguish, and the steps faded away to silence.

And there was another gone.

"Bilbo!" Nori cried, sliding to a stop beside him. "We found a place to hunker down for a bi- Where's Dwalin?"

Bilbo shook his head, rocking his head back and forth where it still rested against the wood of the door. A tear worked it's way loose, the losses suddenly piling their way up in his head. Balin, Bifur, Fíli, Kíli, and Dwalin. All gone.

"He said he'd lead them off," he managed around his grief-thick throat.

"And you let him?" Nori asked in disbelief.

"I didn't let him do anything. He's barricaded the door from the other side."

Nori shoved him aside and threw himself at the door, tugging and pushing and hammering, turning sideways to slam his whole body again and again at the utterly unyielding barrier. 

"We must leave," Bilbo said slowly, running his sleeve over his eyes and tugging at Nori's shoulder when he started to scrabble around himself, presumably for something to help him open a door that would never open.

"We can't just leave him," Nori hissed.

"We must," Bilbo said, tugging at the shoulder under his hand. "Otherwise, we waste what he has just given us."

Nori shook him off, lifting a nearby chair and slamming it into the door. The act did nothing more than shatter the leg off the chair, and Nori slumped against the door, still but for his harsh breathing for a long time. 

Finally, he stood, hands resting upon the barrier for a long long moment, before he reached for a heavy stone plinth nearby and carefully dragged it to wedge against the door, to hold it closed a little longer. Still silent, he reached to take Bilbo's hand in his own shaking one.

"The rest of them are this way," he said blankly, leading him off down another dark dark passage of a cursed mountain.

 

**\--Then--**

He couldn't help it. He'd just felt so suffocated in that room that he had slipped off for another breath of fresh air at the gate -having to be quite sneaky about doing so, the way Thorin, and some of the others, seemed to be becoming more and more paranoid about the actions of those around them- but somehow, being free of the mountain had not felt as refreshing as it had the previous few visits. Instead, he'd shivered amongst the battlements, a terrible sense of impending doom settling about him and leaving him quivering right through to the heart of him. The sensation of being watched was back, and he'd spent a lot of time whipping about abruptly, only to feel a fool to find nothing there, time and time again.

In the end, his heart had been hammering so hard inside his chest, his breath coming in such uneven gasps, he had left the refuge of the only open sky he had access to, and was returning to the treasury, even though amongst the gold was still the most horrid place in all of Middle Earth. But he'd frightened himself well and truly at the gates, and the Dwarrows were at least all in one spot, and Bilbo had the feeling that if he were to be anywhere right now, with them was better than not. 

There was something _very, very wrong_ with this mountain.

Most of the lamps that the others had lit when they had arrived had sputtered out at some point. Bilbo thought it odd, since Bofur, Bombur and Bifur had used some concoction they had mixed with powders and gels, and had implied -though, he should admit, not outright ever _said_ \- that they should continue to burn for a long time. Perhaps by long time, they had meant a day or so- how long had they even _been_ here anyway- but Bilbo had thought they had meant long like _longer_ , since the ones in the treasury were still burning. He'd 'borrowed' one of those on his way out, unwilling to traverse the halls that seemed even darker, and more _malicious_ then when they had arrived.

Like now.

It was infuriating how horridly still it seemed to be in this mountain, when the sound of wind whipping through tunnels echoed and hissed at his ears, at times almost making it seem as if things were moving restlessly in the dark, making him jump and whirl and spin and stumble along. Bitterly cold, and again he was shaking with it, from the contrary sweat building over his skin and rapidly cooling.

Trembling from terror was not helping either.

It was incredibly dark in the tunnels now, and finding his way was a hundred times more difficult now that he did not have the option of simply following the lit passages. Another crossway, and he was certain the he was to go right... or the other, not quite straight ahead? It all looked so different in deep shadow. He hesitated, feet straying forward, but the tunnel ahead was... well. Was there a concept of darker than completely dark? And ominous. Very, very ominous.

He took a step back and spun. Right. He was going right. 'Don't go down the darker-than-dark tunnel of death, Bilbo old chap' he told himself with grim humour.

"Bilbo!"

The cry came from behind him, down that exact tunnel he had just most certainly resolved not to travel down. Was that... was that Ori? Perhaps he _was_ going the wrong way.

"Ori?" he called cautiously, lifting his lamp and peering off down the dark. "Is that you?"

"Bilbo!"

"Ori? What's wrong? Ori!"

"Bilbo, help me!"

"Why?" Bilbo said, lifting his lamp as far as he could, desperately trying to make out anything at all. The darkness seemed to almost swallow his lamp light. "Why, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

It... after everything that Bilbo had been through, everything the _Company_ had been through together, there was nothing on this green earth that could prevent him from helping his friends if they were in trouble. If not for the fact that every instinct he possessed was telling him that going down the dark tunnel was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

"I'm hurt, Bilbo. Help me!"

"Ori, what's happened? Where are you?"

There was no response, and for a long time, Bilbo hovered, the dark ominously silent ahead. He shouldn't, every single part of him was screaming not to go down there, but Ori could really be hurt. 

How odd that he should be hesitating to go to aid his friend.

He swiped one clammy hand across his brow, brushing the thin layer of sweat away before it caused him to start shivering again, and straightened. 

"Al-Alright, Ori. Where are you?" he called into the darkness, taking one tentative step forward. "Ori? _Ori!_ "

"Bilbo?"

The voice came from behind him, and he cried out as he spun, hand going to his chest.

"Ori," he gasped, stepping back away from the tunnel. 

"You called for me?" Ori said, frowning at him oddly, before raising his torch to peer off into the gloom behind Bilbo.

"No, you called for me," Bilbo said, heart still racing a mile a minute, hairs raising along the back of his neck. That sensation of being watched was back.

If Ori was here, who had just been calling to him?

"I didn't call for you," Ori said, frowning at the tunnel. "You shouldn't be down here. Thorin will be noticing you gone, soon. Where were you going?"

"To look for you," Bilbo said, turning to hold his own lamp up again. Honestly, the darkness in this place was impenetrable. "You were calling me from down there, I heard you."

"It wasn't me," Ori murmured, still frowning. "Hello?" he called into the dark, but nobody answered. He took a step forward, and then another, waving his torch in an arch above his head, and Bilbo hastened forward to join him, holding up his lamp.

He should probably be ashamed of the way his hand desperately sought Ori's spare, but Ori latched on easily enough, and squeezed a little too tightly to be all about reassuring Bilbo, and so he clasped tight, and stepped slowly forward when Ori did, and pretended that his gulp was not so audible in the stifling space.

"Is anybody down here?" Bilbo called into the darkness, voice quavering back to him in hollow echoes, but no other sounds reached them, the passage suddenly utterly silent.

Another slow step, and another, both of them faltering the farther they went. Still nothing called to them.

They _both_ shrieked, though, when the lights swung, and hit a petrified Dwarf, the statue menacing and right in front of them, axe held aloft.

"Sweet Mahal," Ori said, a strangled whisper around a clenched throat. "I think I need a change of trousers."

"ddddgglllmmm," Bilbo managed, trying desperately to peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth, and his eyelids out of his forehead.

"I agree," Ori said, tugging on their fused hands, eyes still locked on the odd statue. "Let's leave, shall we?"

"Hmmffss," Bilbo said, nodding frantically. They both backed up, stumbling with the desire to not turn their back on the menacing figure, before they as one turned to flee with fast steps back to the main pass, and Bilbo glanced back, the light bouncing off the grim visage of the fallen Dwarven warrior, it's frozen expression even darker in the odd shadowing, axe seeming to loom higher, raised to strike.

Ori glanced back over his shoulder as well, eyes still wide with something that looked a lot like fear, and a strangled noise made its way out his throat.

"Bofur made dinner," Ori whispered, tugging them both around the corner. "We wouldn't want to miss out," he continued, yanking them into a run that Bilbo was only too happy to try to keep up with. 

Stumbling into the main chamber was sweet relief and light, the semblance, at least, of a level of safety from an intangible danger, and they both bent to gasp deep and grateful, and Bilbo could honestly say he had never been so happy to see a great glowing pile of gold in all his life. 

"Well that was strange," Bilbo finally managed, and Ori giggled somewhat hysterically for a moment.

"Strange does not even begin to cover that," he said quietly, finally dropping Bilbo's hand.

Bilbo stared at him, wiping a new layer of cold sweat from his forehead, and hugging himself when he started to shiver.

"So, you agree with me," he asked after a while. "There is something odd happening in this mountain?"

Ori stopped and glanced at him quickly, and looked away, fidgeting in place.

"I... I don't know," Ori admitted. "I think we need to find the library. There is an old story I once read when I was younger, in a book salvaged from the library of Belegost. I cannot quite remember it, but I think it might be important. I think I need to find that text. It was a copy of an Elvish book, and the main library here was supposed to be as extensive as Moria's great pillar of knowledge."

"Do you think it is still here, though? Books are somewhat flammable, what if the whole lot went up in smoke care of Smaug?"

"Doubtful," Ori said shortly. "Our main through-ways are large and roomy enough for a dragon to stomp his way through, but the corridors around places like homes and libraries all have smaller passages surrounding them, too narrow for a Dragon to bother with. That, and antique treasures would have been kept in the public museums, separate from the written histories, so nothing for him to pillage there to make it worth it, I'd wager."

Bilbo caught sight of Thorin pacing back and forth waving his sword about and chewed at his lip.

"I don't know how we shall accomplish getting there, since I am sure Thorin will not let us out of his sight again," Bilbo said lowly, pulling Ori over to a nearby pile of gold to rifle through when Thorin stopped in his pacing and started to peer around at the assembled Dwarrows. "He's not himself. I don't like this. I don't like any of this!"

"I really think I need to look at the archives, Bilbo," Ori said urgently. "Everything in me says that I have missed something important, that I should have spent more time researching the Elvish tales of the long-ago Drakes instead of trusting the reports given to Thorin. I, I just... I have the worst feeling, Bilbo!"

"Well you can't go on your own," Bilbo said, heart in his throat. "After dinner. Thorin said we could break for dinner. Perhaps you could go then. Take Dwalin."

" _He_ won't go," Ori frowned. "He'll want us to stay here and search."

"Maybe he would have done before," Bilbo said, turning slightly so he could eye the burly dwarf in the corner. "But he knows something isn't right. He was fighting with Thorin before, and he came away near tears."

Ori hummed in a way that was decidedly doubtful, tugging Bilbo up and across the room to hover not far from where Bofur was doling a thin stew of the last of the travel ham and cram into bowls, and carefully observe the Company. The others were starting to drift over in states ranging from relief to grudging, only Glóin and Nori as adamant as Thorin in refusing to leave the gold. It was getting worse if more of them were becoming even more focused on the gold, and really, Bombur was usually the first to front up for a meal, yet he was only just now reluctantly tossing aside jewels to wander over. And the lads! Fíli and Kíli were both diligently working through a pile, polishing gems and coins on their shirts as they worked, sometimes stopping to stare in fascination at some trinket or another. And quiet, oh so quiet! It was not like them. Not like them at all.

"It's getting worse," Bilbo murmured to himself, wringing his hands.

"Yes, and no," Ori said, and then blushed. "I mean, when we first arrived, I admit I was quite taken with it all. You have no idea what the call of gold is to a Dwarf, Bilbo! And there has been so little of it within the Blue Mountains, it was so very overwhelming. But, I think for some of us, the exhaustion and the hunger is waking them up a little." Here he nodded towards Dori, who had finally wandered over and was scowling into his bowl, and Dwalin, sad and weary, spooning the paltry meal into his mouth, slow and tired. Bofur was sitting with his own bowl now, the portions he had grudgingly served out and uncollected congealing in their bowls in a little half-circle about him, and scowling, always scowling. When was the last time Bilbo had seen the happy Dwarf smile?

Óin was with them, but he seemed torn. He'd brought a pile of gems with him to have his dinner, and he would take a few bites before he set aside his bowl and started to peer at stones through an odd little spy glass, but after a few minutes, his brow would crease, and he would blink tiredly and set the jewels aside and reach for his bowl again, slumped and half asleep, before the whole process would start again. 

"Some are getting worse, though," Ori admitted, looking to where Bombur had dully finished his meal and quietly set his bowl aside and returned to the gold without thought to seconds of the paltry meal, lowering himself onto a pile and gently running his fingers through the riches about him. 

Bilbo darted forward and retrieved a few bowls for them, and shivered when Bofur turned his glare on him for the trouble, pulling Ori over away from the others and beside a great stone pillar. He had an ally now, someone else who seemed as discomforted at this place as he, and he was not going to get them into trouble speaking of such things around the others. 

"Where's Bifur?" Bilbo wondered, eying Bofur's continuing scowl.

"You hadn't noticed?" Ori asked around a mouthful, pointing up, and Bilbo's gaze went up and across the room.

It was difficult to see in the shadowy portion of the room, but Bifur had found himself a perch up high, atop a fallen pillar and in the corner space between the wall and a buttress. He was shoved back into that corner, too, eyes wide and darting, pike clutched desperately to his body.

"That's not..." 

"Good. No," Ori agreed. "It's not just us, I am sure of it. Something is wrong here. Bifur knows it. Balin's missing, too."

"What?" Bilbo's head whipped back and around the room, but Ori was correct. Balin was not amongst the others.

"That's how I found you out there, I went to find him. I don't know where he went, though."

"You don't think that was him calling for help, do you?" Bilbo said, tapping his spoon against the side of his bowl in a nervous rhythm.

"No. I didn't hear anything at all. And I am certain, Bilbo, that you absolutely should not go anywhere alone. No matter what you hear." Ori's face was twisted with worry, now, and he chewed nervously on his fingernails.

Bilbo grunted in acknowledgement, finishing his dinner quickly, eying the strange behaviour of his Dwarrows.

"I think we had better talk to Dwalin," he decided.

"Are you crazy? I thought you were joking! He's the most loyal of all Dwarrows to Thorin. Why would he help us?" Ori asked incredulously.

"Look at him, Ori," Bilbo insisted. "That is not the Dwalin we know. And he may know where Balin is!"

Ori spooned the last of his watery dinner into his mouth and swallowed, grimacing deeply.

"Fine. But don't be surprised if he's the one to take our heads for treason."

Bilbo huffed, but stood, swirling his spoon in his bowl and pretending to eat when Thorin briefly turned his way, feigning a distinct fascination with his meal until Thorin frowned and turned away again, and then hurried across to sit beside the morose axe-wielding giant of a Dwarrow that was Thorin's best friend. 

Once there, though, he really had no idea what to say. It did not seem to matter, however, when Dwalin grunted and stabbed at his bowl.

"Balin has gone to look for the library. He says that there is something wrong with the mountain."

"Do you agree?" Bilbo asked. There really was never any reason to be beating about the bush with Dwalin.

The dwarf in question did not answer immediately, though, but stared into his unappetising dinner for a long while, eyes sad.

"He wears the crown and stands amongst riches, victorious, and he is far less a King now than he was crownless with nothing. I don't know what to do," Dwalin admitted, sniffing a little. 

Bilbo... did not know what to say to that. He settled for patting the giant dwarrow's arm gently, leaning into him in comfort.

"Do you think he'll find it?" he asked. "The library," he clarified when Dwalin looked up at him. "Will Balin find the library easily enough?"

Dwalin shrugged.

"He should. I barely remember this place, but Balin told me stories... I know it was a fairly direct walk from the throne to the scribes gallery, and through there, one could access the tomes of knowledge. It should be simple... He's not himself," Dwalin told Bilbo desperately.

"Thorin? No, he isn't, but we'll soon-"

"Balin. He's not himself," Dwalin said, dinner set aside now, in favour of wringing his hands together. "Nothing is right. Balin is not himself, and I don't know what to do."

Bilbo caught the great hands with his own, as the tightening of his fingers around his own dusters threatened to hurt himself.

"Ori and I wanted to find the Library, too," Bilbo told him quietly. "There is something wrong here, and Ori thinks he can figure out what. And if he can discover the problem, then we can fix it."

Dwalin fidgeted, eyes darting about and landing again on Thorin's pacing figure.

"It's so hard to think in this place," he admitted, forehead creased.

"There is only one thing you need to remember," Bilbo told him firmly, and jabbed him with his finger. "You came on this journey to protect Thorin. You _swore_ to protect him. Do your duty."

Dwalin jerked like Bilbo had struck him across the face, eyes wide and breath hard, and he stared for a long minute before his gaze went back to Thorin, and hardened, and he nodded.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Keep Thorin distracted," Bilbo said immediately. "We'll find Balin and look through the Library for information. Thorin may notice we aren't here, though."

"I don't think he'll notice a thing," Dwalin said softly, still staring at his King. His gaze swivelled away quickly, though, when Balin stumbled over and collapsed next to him on the step.

"Balin?" Bilbo asked uncertainly. The normally stoic Dwarf looked a mess, with cobwebs and dust caking his clothing, his beard a mess of snarls and blobs of muck, and his eyes wild.

"It's dark out there," Balin muttered, huddling into his messy coat. "So dark. The lanterns keep going out."

"Did you find the library?" Bilbo asked in a whisper, when Thorin's furious pacing took him another lap around the room, glaring at everybody and everything, and even a few things that weren't there at all, by the look of it, but aside from a furious glower in their direction, he seemed too out of his own mind to come and berate them. 

It was getting worse.

"The library. Yes, yes, I did," Balin said. "I couldn't stay there. I lit all the lanterns. They flickered, Bilbo. They _flickered_."

"Lanterns do that sometimes," Bilbo said slowly. 

"Not Dwarven lanterns," Dwalin said ominously, folding his brother gently into his side. 

Bilbo turned that thought over, chewing on his own lip and watching Balin mumble to himself, rocking in Dwalin's grip.

Everything in him was screaming that they were fast running out of time. 

"Keep him distracted," he said finally, with a tilt of his head towards Thorin. "We'll be back soon."

 

**\--Now--**

Thorin was huddled into a tight ball in the corner of the room, face buried into his knees when Bilbo made his way over, having checked all the entry points to the room and counted off what remained of the Company. Counting that had left a great panging throb in his chest at the reminder. More lost. Five gone, now. Balin, Bifur, Dwalin and the lads. 

The very reason he made his way across to the solitary King, wrapped in a ball, so trapped in grief, Bilbo wondered if he would continue on. 

What do you say when someone's whole world is crumbling down around them?

"Thorin?" he asked tentatively, when Glóin solemnly prodded him forward with an encouraging nod. Thorin did not react, but his hunched shoulders and just-audible gasping sobs tore at Bilbo's heart, and he knelt and wrapped his arms around Thorin's bulky shoulders as best he could, and buried his face into tangled dark locks.

"I have done this," Thorin whispered, loud in the space between them. "I have been the one to finally bring wrath and ruin to my line. I have killed my beloved sister-sons and the truest friends a Dwarf could ask for with my blind pride. You should leave me to my fate."

"Don't be silly," Bilbo said around the tears he'd been trying to quell. "Your fate is to bring freedom to your people, not huddle in a corner waiting to be slaughtered. Fíli and Kíli would be outraged. So would Dwalin and Balin and Bifur, for that matter, so stop being so melodramatic!"

"Everything I have done, I have done for them," Thorin whispered harshly, and Bilbo buried his fingers into all that hair and pulled, until Thorin lifted his head long enough for Bilbo to wedge himself in, and let that head rest on his shoulder. "I named them my heirs out of necessity and love, but it brought me nothing but grief to do so, to know what I was sentencing them to. I wanted so much for them, for their future, I wanted so much to change our circumstances for them. I didn't ever want them to have to lead a dying people, to be King of the starving and poor. You can't imagine the helplessness, unable to be what your people deserve, deliver the life they deserve."

Bilbo shook his head, unable to speak around the lump of held-back tears in his throat.

"I have killed them with my greed and my pride. Madness worse than my grandfather's. And now I have doomed the last of my people to slowly die out, in a ruined Mountain of the West. There is nothing, now."

"There is _everything_ ," Bilbo insisted, suddenly angry. "It is _everything_ to the thousands of your people in the West, waiting for word of their new home, of a future without poverty and sickness and hunger in their bellies. Will you lay down and die and allow them to come to ruin? Are you that selfish?"

Thorin reared back, eyes wide and furious, but Bilbo glared, shoving a finger firmly into Thorin's chest.

"The ones we have lost would be appalled at that attitude, that you would abandon their kin, allow them to starve and die without any to care for their fate because you personally lost people close to you. They came on a quest to destroy a dragon, they _knew_ there was little chance of survival. They accepted that. It was always quite likely that we would die in the attempt. That does not mean you get to give up!"

Thorin stared at him a long time, and Bilbo could feel the weight of the gaze of every other member of the Company on his back. 

"Don't give up, Thorin," Bilbo pleaded. "We can do this. We can reclaim this mountain. For good."

"I... yes, alright," Thorin said slowly, gripping Bilbo tightly for a moment. "We... I owe them the promise of a home, no matter the cost. That is what we swore in the beginning. That is what I shall do. I shall reclaim our home for the Dwarrows of Erebor."

"We will," Glóin said behind Bilbo, and he twisted to take in the members of the Company, tall and resolute, and Bilbo nodded to all of them, and finally Thorin.

"Yes, we will."

 

**\--Then--**

"Well, that wasn't nerve wracking at all," Bilbo said nervously, backing into the library. The corridors here were... exceedingly creepy. "I guess one does not understand what it is to live inside a mountain until they encounter how damnably dark it is down here."

"This is not much like living in a mountain at all," Ori insisted, running enquiring fingers down a sign carved into a rock plinth, that looked to be a list by the outlining, though Bilbo could not read the sharply shaped glyphs that were the Dwarven script. "There is always a little light somewhere in a mountain, and you would be surprised how much it reflects and illuminates. The angles and build of Dwarven construction are planned just right to do exactly that. This darkness is not natural," he finished grimly, moving quickly along the stacks to another catalogue, and quickly reading through.

"Great," Bilbo sighed, rubbing at his eyes. Another thing to be worrying about.

"Got it," Ori murmured, hurrying along the rows and taking off down an alley of dark bookcases, and they turned into another book stack, Ori running his fingers along the grimy metal plates mounted along each shelf. 

Bilbo tried very hard to ignore the lantern gently swinging on its hook when they entered the row. 

"Here," Ori said triumphantly, ducking down to fingerwalk along a row of dusty leather spines, all in various elvish languages. 

"Of course you keep the elvish books practically on the floor," Bilbo muttered, backtracking to grab one of the funny rolling tables that dotted the area and wheeling it back. Piles of elvish books went on the stand, and Bilbo grabbed any of them that looked to be in Sindarin for him to glance through. Quenya and Silvan, there were plenty, though, and Bilbo spared a moment to admire the dedication Ori seemed to have if he could read those as well as Common and Sindarin and his own complex language as well.

"I'm pretty sure what we are looking for is a collection of tales from the Second Age on monstrous beasts," Ori said, already flipping through texts and discarding them on the floor next to him. "Look for anything referencing dragons."

Bilbo discarded three texts in a row, fingers trembling at the clanging sense of urgency.

"This one has a list of known types and how to identify them," he said, flipping through it quickly, but the rest seemed to be devoted to other creatures.

"I'm not looking for a physical description," Ori said vaguely, flipping through the text and discarding it for another. "I remember reading something more about dragons as a younger lad, gave me the shivers it did, and I never paid much more attention because it was too frightening and I thought it mostly fictional. A coward, I am, and now I may have doomed us all. It's got to be here somewhere!"

"This is not your fault," Bilbo insisted.

"If I'd just remembered, if I'd searched and found evidence..."

"Thorin still would have come," Bilbo said shortly. "He's not one to trust the judgement of Elves, in any case. Here, this one has many pictures of dragons, but it is in Quenya," Bilbo handed it over, "and I am not fluent."

"Let me see." Ori flipped through the small tome quickly, running his fingers along a page to a line and then flipping many ahead to another section. "Yes! Not the book I remember, but here, see? Dragons are... yes, I know all that, I am looking for a, oh, here it is! Dragons '... contrary to common belief, are not driven by beast-like instincts, instead possess a sharp intellect and refined cunning, occasionally even seen as a playful curiosity that one should never account as a decrease in the likelihood of death through such an encounter. It is not only their physical prowess that adds to their deadly nature, however, but their mind, indeed, their powers themselves rest in most part within the damaging of the psyche.' which we already know."

"I would liked to have known more about that _before_ you lot sent me in to face Smaug," Bilbo grumbled, while Ori muttered over the translation, skimming across to the next page.

"There's another one here," Bilbo said, handing over another book in Quenya, this one big and bulky, turned to the pages filled with frightening illustrations reminiscent of Bilbo's encounter with Smaug. 

"Give," Ori demanded, giving the first back to Bilbo with instructions to hold on to it. "This... is the one I remembered! I knew it would be here, this Library is wonderful... Oh, here, let me read this..." he trailed off, mouth moving silently along with the text.

"Right, here we go. '...possess the ability to influence even the purest of souls, manipulate and control the mind of the weak or those prone to illness of the mind, to strip out good judgement and common sense of their victims. A force that grows even, it is said, to a level of power so as to control the remnants of the minds left within the dead.' Sounds as if you were lucky, Bilbo."

"What does that even mean?" Bilbo asked, jittering from one leg to another in a little jig of terror. "Control the remnants of the dead, and what have you?"

"Don't know," Ori said, though his tone was that of one that had a suspicion. He turned the page, fingers skimming down to a section half down the page. "And here, again: '...as well as an adeptness with the almost puppet-like control of the wits of others, it's abilities to manipulate the mentality of the races extends to an affinity with the magic of curses, most primarily based in the protection of their hoard...'"

"Curses to protect the hoard? The gold is _cursed?_ "

"Oh dear," Ori said, and read aloud "'... this malicious belligerence extends to the jealous guarding of their hoards, even beyond death. Treasure is coddled close, and the longer one of these foul beasts gloats over his prize and lays idle amongst the riches, the longer, and stronger, the curse of the beast upon the hoard... Any within the vicinity of the gold will feel its pull, and the longer one resides amongst it, and thinks as the beast, and covets the burdened treasure, the stronger the curse grows, until it consumes the fate of those who would possess it. Armies shall fall to war, and friends shall become enemies, and the insidious hidden traps of the cursed lair shall strike at the unprotected backs of those too far entrenched in madness to sense their doom'. We'll, that doesn't sound good," Ori said in a quavering attempt at humour that fell far short of its mark.

Bilbo stood back, running his hands through his hair, hair that was lank and unkempt, and longed once more for a time where he was not mixed up in all this business of Dwarrows and Dragons. He could be eating a nice fish dinner after a good bath right now. Instead of investigating curses and other such ridiculousness.

"There's a few different accounts, here," Ori muttered, but Bilbo was not listening, his whole body suddenly tight with terror.

"Ori," he managed around the great lump in his throat, " _Ori!_ "

"What?" Ori asked waspishly, still skimming through pages of text.

"You said that Smaug never came here. That he wouldn't have fit down the hall?"

Ori hummed an agreement, frowning at the book.

"Then where did that come from?" Bilbo pointed one shaking finger towards the end of the stack.

"What?" Ori asked, standing and turning, and freezing at the sight of the petrified dwarf at the end of the row, two great swords held menacingly in front of him, stone eyes glittering at them madly.

Bilbo stared at it. Ori stared at it.

"Oh dear," Ori said, groping behind him for the book and clutching it to his chest. "I think we'd better go."

Bilbo whimpered an agreement and as one they swung in the other direction.

A second Dwarrow statue stood at the other end, a massive axe held aloft.

Bilbo's gulp was loud in the silence of the library, and he stared in horror at the statue even as Ori spun back the other way.

"Bilbo," Ori whispered urgently after a long frozen moment. "Don't take your eyes of the axe-dwarf."

"Why?" Bilbo asked shrilly, backing up a little, and something extremely sharp prodded him in the back. His eyes widened further and he whined a little.

"I think," Ori whimpered, "I think they may move when we are not looking."

"Oh," Bilbo said. Well. This little jaunt was turning into a suitably horrific situation. "Do- Do we have a plan?"

"Well," Ori said, tone cheerful in that way that told Bilbo they were certainly about to die. "Mr two-swords was joined by a friend while we were saying hello to the axe-wielding fellow you're keeping an eye on, so I'm voting for braving Mr Axe."

"Good plan," Bilbo said quickly, shuffling sideways to press his back firmly against Ori's, and fist his hands into what he could reach of Ori's jerkin. "Off we go, then."

Together they shuffled forward towards the axe-wielding statue, still and menacing at the end of the aisle.

The lanterns beside them flickered, and the first of them extinguished abruptly.

"Oh dear," Bilbo said, trying very hard not to take his eyes of the statue in the dying light as the lights started to fail one by one. 

"To the stack to your left," Ori said urgently, steering them sideways. "Knock it down."

"What?" Bilbo asked breathlessly, eyes straining.

" _Knock it down!_ " Ori cried urgently, and threw his shoulder against the stack. Bilbo whimpered again, and did as asked, gaze glued to the statue that seemed to be capable of watching them no matter which direction they were, eyes burning from the nervous sweat sliding down his forehead. 

As one, they slammed against the bookshelf, and perhaps adrenalin fuelled them well, as the stacks were heavy and good Dwarven construction, but they wobbled nonetheless when Ori and Bilbo rammed them desperately.

"We're very lucky these aren't stone," Bilbo cried somewhat hysterically, bracing himself and hurling his aching shoulder against the wood, despite the books raining down and hitting him.

"Stone's not good for books," Ori said grimly, and they both hurled themselves at the shelf, and Bilbo shrieked, when a falling book cut off his view, and cleared to show the Dwarf halfway down the aisle towards them.

The stack teetered, and then toppled with a crash into the next, and for a moment it seemed as if the next would hold, no doubt spaced to prevent this exact thing from happening, but Ori hauled Bilbo up onto the downed wood like a ladder, and the next toppled, and then the next, and they abandoned watching, and leapt from shelf to shelf, hopping so fast up the shelves that they were hopping to the next before it was even hit and toppling, making for the door at the other end of the room.

Oh, and from up here they could see the whole library, and the _dozens_ of stone Dwarrows surrounding them, all watching with glittering dark eyes as they leapt and leapt, reaching for the freedom of the door.

Which was blocked.

"Ori!" Bilbo yelled.

"I see them," Ori said, head swivelling, hand clutched in Bilbo's, trusting him to keep them moving. "We have to jump for the vent!"

"What!?!" Bilbo shrieked, eyes bugging at the vent high in the wall ahead, the vent with the barred grid over it, which was approaching fast as they leapt.

"Just do it!" Ori yelled, and they braced themselves on the last shelf and leapt and held on tight, toes scrabbling for purchase in the stone wall, and Ori fumbled with a mechanism inside the vent, they braced their feet on the wall and hauled, and it lifted, and they clambered in awkwardly, the whole process taking less than a minute, and Ori jammed a long rod back into place to hold it closed, and they collapsed back against the walls of the narrow shaft they had wedged themselves into.

The light flickered for a long moment, and Bilbo screamed at the stone face that had appeared pressed against the vent. Ori started chanting what sounded very much like a prayer in his own language, and Bilbo stared, heart pounding loud and drowning out everything for long moments, gaze connected with the black eyes of the long-dead Dwarf.

Carefully, he edged forward, eyes locked on the dead dwarf and slowly sliding down it's stone body. It was standing on another, and that one on another, and that one on a pile of downed-shelf, to reach the vent. Not far from them, two of the good three or four dozen were actually damaged enough from the falling shelves to have parts smashed right off, in a way that could possibly prevent them from following.

"They can be broken," Bilbo murmured, looking back at the one so close to him, through the grate. Ori edged close to him and peered below, and then abruptly grinned, all teeth and out-of-place malice.

"Good," he hissed, and slid free the bolt holding closed the grate between them and the statue.

"What are you doing?" Bilbo asked in alarm, but Ori did not answer, only bracing his feet on the grate, and then drawing back to kick it solidly outwards. 

It hit the dead Dwarrow straight on, and he toppled, falling down and crashing over the bookshelf below, splitting straight through the middle, his legs one side of shelf, and his top half rolling away to wedge awkwardly between shelves. The one it had been standing on wobbled, and Ori leant out the vent and whacked it in the head with the heavy elvish book, until it to rolled and toppled and hit the one below, but the only evidence of damage was a large crack in its arm. Ori yanked himself back into the vent and re-bolted the vent with another frighteningly vicious grin.

Bilbo gaped. 

"Hopefully that kills them.... sort of. I mean, they are already dead," Ori admitted, while Bilbo continued to stare. 

"Ori?"

The lad hummed absently, leaning to keep an eye on the statues below, and Bilbo shook his head in disbelief.

"You are one scary fellow when you want to be, aren't you?"

"I grew up with Dori," Ori nodded, and the two shared grins, before all the lanterns started flickering wildly in the room below, and they scarpered up the shaft.

"Do you know where this goes?" Bilbo asked, as they half-crawled, half-skidded around a corner and hooked a grating into place, Ori giving it a few good kicks to jam it into place.

"No idea," Ori admitted. "But anywhere away from those things is better than nothing, right?"

"Right," Bilbo agreed, and hastened around the next bend.

___


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Och, I have some beautiful art, people. I am terrible at linkage, and I am having a hell of a time getting the art to go in the bloody chapter, so the best I can do is point you in the right direction.
> 
> From the amazing Sonya, we have these beauties here, woah, check them out!  
> http://teaxdragon.tumblr.com/tagged/Lùchapâlh 
> 
> From the stunning Katy, head on over here, wow, amazing!  
> http://drakyrna-art.tumblr.com/tagged/luchapalh
> 
> And we will have art from Ciara soon, too, but peeps, let the love get through those horrid exams, first! Her blog is here:  
> http://theindianwinter.tumblr.com/  
>  **EDIT: Ciara has her amazing art up now, check it out!**  
>  http://theindianwinter.tumblr.com/post/120009608707/luchapalh-those-that-make-haste-from-this  
> It's amazing!
> 
> And don't forget to check out the rest of their art, because these babes are TALENTED. Talented as hell. Go looky. You will not regret it.
> 
> Also, miss Beth is the amazing Beta behind my crazy, but I've been playing with this a bit lately, trying to make it better, but... well. I am not that great at this. Point being, if there are mistakes, it's all on me.

**\--Now--**

"Uncle?"

The call came from back the way they had come. Back into the darkness.

As one, they ground to a stop, silent and still, straining to hear.

"Thorin!"

"Fíli?" Thorin gasped, moving back a few paces in the direction of the voice, before Bilbo managed to grab him.

"Don't," he cautioned.

"Thorin? Where are you?" The call echoed strangely; hollow and without direction, trailing off at the end.

"That's Kíli," Thorin said, straining slightly against Bilbo's grip. Dori moved to grasp his other shoulder.

"You know it isn't them, Thorin," Bilbo said, and he tried to be gentle, but he knew his tone was harsh. They had done this to them before.

Two levels down it had been Dwalin.

Navigating a tricky network of indoor roads and residences, it had been Bifur, calling for his cousins.

The crossroads way back, it had been Fíli again.

"It's not them," Bilbo hissed, yanking on Thorin's hair harshly. "And if you call to them, they will find us."

"They will find us anyway," Thorin said hoarsely. "They always find us."

"Fíli and Kíli would never want you to jeopardise the safety of the Company for them," Bilbo insisted, forcing himself not to flinch at the gutted expression he put on Thorin's face. "We must continue."

Thorin seemed almost incapable of anything, let alone ordering them forward, face torn in grief, and Bilbo allowed himself the luxury of cradling that face in his hands, coaxing Thorin's head down low enough to brace his forehead against Bilbo's, forcing their eyes to meet and take his attention off the occasional calls.

"We don't know their fate. They could be fine. They could be waiting for you to come and rescue them. But we can do nothing for them while these things pursue us still. We must be rid of them, before we can find the lads, and the rest of our Company. We must go on, Thorin. We must."

Thorin's eyes fell closed, and he stood silent for his harsh, unsteady breaths for a long moment. The others stayed silent also, gathering around and backing into the two, offering what comfort they could while staying ever watchful for signs they had been found.

At last, Thorin nodded, blinking back tears and straightening again.

"Yes, you are right. We'll go back, after, and find them. We'll find all of them."

Bilbo nodded numbly, letting his thumbs swipe just once over those beloved cheeks and then let his hands fall, stepping back and taking his place as they reformed their watchful circle, ignoring the almost sing-song calls echoing with a call for Uncle.

"We'll take the stairs on the right up along here, and there is a stately dwelling at the top of the rise. On the third floor is a window overlooking a chasm, and a wall and courtyard beyond. If we can jump to there, we can cut out much travel. The passages leading to the Zarârgharâf are at the end of the next lot." Thorin took a deep breath, gathering himself, and nodding once more to Bilbo. "Let's move."

 

**\--Then--**

When they managed to barrel into the treasury, it was almost anti-climatic. The others were all where they had left them, rifling through gold, pacing and muttering, or sitting dejected and uncertain in corners. All present and accounted for.

It was a little odd, really, considering their terrifying dash from the library, but here they all were, unconcerned and quietly playing in the gold. Bombur still tiredly rifling, Glóin still angrily muttering to himself, Dwalin still dejected and weary.

Thorin still perched on his little ledge, high above the others.

Bilbo had not seen wrongly, before, he realised. 

" _Thorin!_ " he yelled at the top of his lungs, seeing the shadowy outline atop the corbel behind where his Dwarrow-King stood, gaze far off and helpless, completely unaware of the danger behind him. Until Bilbo screamed, however, and he stepped forward, face twisting into an irritated glare. "Come down, quickly, Thorin!" Bilbo insisted, whimpering a little when Thorin hesitated.

For once, circumstances were kind to Bilbo, and Thorin jumped down from his high up ledge, and Bilbo saw the statue now, and it's sword, and almost collapsed under the weight of relief. 

How much longer before his Thorin would have been lost to him by way of its cold hands?

The others must have sensed the urgency, because they were all converging on the two panting, ankle deep in gold, and Bilbo thought for sure that perhaps they could escape this mess they found themselves in.

Before he noticed that in the so very brief time since they had skidded into the treasury, a statue had appeared in every doorway around the wall, and a few had emerged from shadowy recesses about the place, all still and silent and watching as Bilbo turned in a horrified circle.

"Ori," Bilbo said faintly, and Ori reached to grab his hand again, clinging tight.

"I see them."

"What is the meaning of this?" Thorin demanded, stalking closer to them.

"The-" Bilbo tried, throat tight with renewed terror. "The _statues_ "

Atop his perch in the corner, not far from them, Bifur gave a low anguished wail, rocking back and forth, and the others spun, taking in the statues around them, a good two dozen now, appearing when none looked, and sneaking forward when no gaze was upon them.

"What...?" Dwalin asked, gripping an axe tightly in his hand, spinning with the others.

"I knew it," Balin whispered, his mace gripped to him tightly, shaking all over. "I knew it. We are cursed. They will kill us all and haunt our halls forever!"

"What?" Thorin said, bewildered, turning in an unsteady circle. "I... I don't-"

"The statues, they are cursed," Ori said, and gasped when he saw one had managed to move closer. "We must leave!"

"But," Thorin said, even as he backed away from the encroaching statues. "I don't understand."

"The gold is cursed!" Bilbo shouted in frustration. "And we need to _leave_ before the things kill us all!"

"Bifur, come down," Ori pleaded, motioning. The others were either in states of complete terror -Bifur and Balin, mostly- or bewilderment, the state of affairs mostly still quite a mystery to them. They needed to gather the silly buggers together and _get out_.

"Come on, Bif," Bofur said, and Bilbo could see things catching up with him, the dour blankness draining away to a building fear.

"They've cut us off from all the exits," Dwalin cried, and there was the panic, now they were getting it.

"The armoury," Thorin said, grabbing for the lads, and yanking them backwards. "To the armoury!"

"It's all decorative armour!" Bilbo cried, but moved with the lot of them, letting Ori tug him down in a cascade of coins, jeweled chains wrapping around his ankles as he stumbled through the treasure, trusting Ori to guide him after the others so he could try and keep an eye on the surrounding stone Dwarrows.

"There's no such thing as useless armour when a Dwarrow does the forging," Glóin roared, yanking him through the door. Bifur barrelled in behind him, and they shut the door, barring it with a giant piece of dislodged stone. Bilbo grabbed a funny stone statue that was apparently used for displaying some of these armour bits on, and with Nori's help, yanked it to wedge with the lump of stone, just in time for a massive crunch to come, as if much weight had barrelled against the door all at once. 

The others were arming themselves up, yanking on the best of the armour and taking down great axes and hammers.

"Do you really think any of that is going to do any good?" Bilbo asked incredulously. "They're _stone!_ "

"Those few broke when we collapsed the shelves down onto them, and the two were knocked down broke easy enough," Ori reminded him, taking up a massive spiked hammer set with gleaming, blood red stones. Bilbo would be worried about the massive weapon next to the comparatively small Dwarf, but he'd seen Ori with Dwalin's war hammer several times since the goblin tunnels, and, well. Like the lad had said before, Ori grew up with Dori. Tough in a tiny shell did not even begin to cover it.

"Bilbo," Thorin said, pushing through them, and Bilbo could not help the great deep sigh of relief to see that Thorin had stripped off his Grandfather's armour, and was donning serviceable black leather jerkin and vambraces- serviceable, yes, though it sported some very fancy silver-and-shiny-stone studwork. 

"That's not enough," Bilbo insisted, tugging at the leathers. "Very nice, but not thick enough to fend off a blow from a great stone axe or something like that." 

"Never mind that," Thorin said, but his tone was fond, expression soft. "We must get you outfitted."

"What do I need _armour_ for?" Bilbo demanded, glad he'd decided to wear his short elvish dagger to the Library. None of the weapons in here were very... petite. They all looked frightfully heavy. Not that he was sure he would be able to do anything about an enemy made of _stone_.

"Do you want to see whether a stone Dwarf dagger stabs just as well as a steel one?" Thorin asked in exasperation, holding a slinky, pretty looking shirt up to him. "Take this."

Bilbo eyed it dubiously. It was indeed very pretty.... but very thin. Almost see through!

"I... don't know if that will help?" he said helplessly, and nearby Óin snorted loud enough to sound as if his lungs were escaping his nose. 

"It will do wonders," Óin said. "Best armour in the whole mountain, right there."

"It's _see through_."

"It's Sanzigil. _Mithril_ , lad, True Silver! Ancient mined and forged in Moria. Nothing stronger in the whole mountain."

"Then Thorin should wear it!"

"It won't fit me," Thorin said, amused now, and did he already forget that they were being pursued by terrible monster dwarves? One would think that the pounding at the door would present a good reminder.

"Put it on Fíli, then! Or Ori!" 

"That won't fit any of us," Fíli said impatiently. "Leave us out of this, and put the shirt on!"

"Leave you out of _wha-_ " He was cut off when Dwalin yanked his jacket off from behind and Thorin took that as permission to shove the shirt over his head, and Dwalin whipped his little sheath off while Bilbo was still spluttering and untangling himsef, almost taking Bilbo's pants with him. Bilbo righted himself best he could and let Thorin strap a brand new belt bit thingy (that was entirely too _pretty_ to be funtional, surely? Were they _pearls?_ ) for his sheath back over the shirt.

"There. Was that so hard?" Thorin asked with no small amount of exasperation. 

"And what about you?" Bilbo demanded, stamping his foot on the ground at the obstinate expression on the other's face. 

"This is all very nice," Nori interrupted, "but we have to find a way out of this little room. We're surrounded by dead dwarves! How is this even possible?"

"There's a passage, at the back there," Thorin said, taking a mailshirt of many funny silver dagger-shapes from Dwalin and allowing his friend to assist him with getting it on. "That is why I brought us in here. It will take us up to the palatial residences, and from there, we can make our way to the main gate, and leave the mountain."

"We must leave, yes," Balin quavered. "Our dead. He's turned our dead against us!"

"Will somebody please explain what is going on now?" Bombur asked plaintively, a flail in one hand, and a club-like thing in the other. Bilbo _really_ hoped he knew how to use them.

Ori slammed the books they had gathered on the table in front of him and started explaining what he and Bilbo had deciphered and discovered so far, but Bilbo tuned him out, watching Thorin. He hadn't seen this Thorin for so long. His face was alert, eyes focused, posture straight and tall, and _finally_ out of that ridiculous gold costume and that horrible crown, hands sure as he strapped a sheathed Dwarven sword to his person. If Bilbo could just fix his hair, it might be like the real Thorin was returned to him. Them.

"May I fix your hair?" he asked plaintively, eyeing that dangling clasp again, and the room stopped, staring at him strangely. "It's all... messy," he finished lamely, blushing deeply.

"I..." Thorin trailed off, flustered, and flushed a deep dark red, gaze dropping.

"We do not have time for the two of you to be canoodling," Dori said impatiently, and Thorin shot Bilbo one soft look and shook his head and worked at fixing his own hair, braids quickly tightened and neatened and the great mane of black finger combed back into order. Bilbo felt his own expression soften exponentially at the transformation of his Dwarrow king, now looking more himself than Bilbo had seen him in a long time.

"So, we have a plan?" Ori asked. "Do you remember how to get... well, everywhere? _Out?_ "

"As if I had never left," Thorin said emphatically, clipping his clasps back into place. 

"And if we encounter the, the statues?" Kíli asked, voice wavering. "Mutilating the dead is... it's profane, uncle. I don't know if I can."

"You will," Fíli said grimly, before Thorin had a chance. "You will, because if you don't, they will kill you."

"But-"

"Allowing Smaug to slaughter the line of Durin with our dead is profane, too," Fíli said shortly. "And if you let them harm you, or _our King_ , I will _never_ forgive you."

Kíli stared helplessly at his brother for a long moment, before he nodded slowly, gaze falling, and the group moved back to donning the last of their gear. Thorin spared his nephews one long look of sorrow, before his expression hardened, resolute.

"Let's move out."

 

**\--Now--**

They were breaking in. The doors were bowing in at the force pummelling them from the other side, and Glóin threw himself at the door, shoving his body at the door as it buckled and heaved.

"Hurry!" he bellowed at them, and Nori growled, hands trembling ever so slightly from where he struggled with the intricacies of dwarven puzzle locks. 

The lanterns were flickering madly, and Bombur started to sob, throwing himself at the doors alongside Glóin, joined by Óin, while Dori and Ori strained to haul a massive stone table along to prop in place, and then even Thorin ran to help, leaving Bilbo to hold the lanterns for Nori, exchanging grim looks with Bofur, who was holding a pile of tools out for Nori to swap out where needed.

So close. They were _so close_. The holy places had indeed been all locked down when they got here, but not to the point of unmanageable according to their expert lock-picker, and they had made it through the initial entrances to the wide waiting hall, outside the main Zarârgharâf. Nori just needed time to get them into the next room, and then they could relock what Thorin had assured him had been some of the most secure doors in the mountain, and they could be safe for just a little while, and plan what they would do next. 

He'd been at it for a goodly time when they had been discovered. Now, it was a race again, to try and escape their cursed pursuers.

"I've got it!" Nori suddenly crowed, and dipped his fingers into some sort of pigmented powder, smearing quick runes across the lock, that shimmered and then dulled, and the door clanked and boomed, and then fell silent, and Bofur paused in shoving tools away in a pouch to stare at the door. Nori shook his head.

"Just wait."

There was a click, and then another, and then a series of thud-like movements, and the doors slid very slowly open, but stilling when there was but a gap only two Dwarrows wide, not that Bilbo minded. It would be easier to shut them if they were not open very much, as Bilbo was astonished to realise that the door actually went all the way up to the cavernous ceiling, far, far overhead. 

"Come on," Nori yelled, and he and Bofur ducked forward into the dark.

The lanterns sputtered, and half of them abruptly darkened.

"Thorin," Bilbo, well, meant to yell, though it came out on a breath of terror. "Quickly!" he managed, regaining his voice. "You must all come now!"

Bombur and Ori managed to get the heavy table into position, wedged as best they could, and made for where Bilbo stood, beckoning them forward. Thorin gave up trying to relight any of the lanterns while leaning against a buckling door, and shoved Glóin forward with him, to stumble through.

The door bounced in its frame, and the heavy table they had placed skidded a foot away from the force of it. All but one lantern died, the last in Bilbo's hand sputtering and flickering dangerously.

Dori halted in his mad dash for the Zarârgharâf door, almost falling with the sudden stop and turn, throwing himself back towards the buckling framework.

"Go!" he yelled, pushing the table back into place and holding it firm.

"No!" Nori yelled, running back out the doors towards them, and Ori grabbed him, hauling him back. "Let me go, Ori. Don't, Dori, don't!"

"Du Bekar!" Óin yelled suddenly, pitching himself back the other way to slam into the table beside Dori, when the braided Dwarf's boots slid on the floor with the effort. "Brother, keep our King safe!" he bellowed, straining with Dori to hold the door shut as it splintered and one of the hinges cracked and broke away/

"Don't be stupid!" Nori bellowed, even as Glóin sadly saluted his brother and yanked Thorin backwards through the door, and taking Bilbo with them by the hold Thorin refused to loose in Bilbo's jacket.

"Ori, take your brother!" Dori yelled as the last lantern went out, plunging them into darkness, and the pummelling on the door changed from many thumps, to one louder, harder crash, and the squeal of the table slowly sliding forward on the stone floor. "They're coming," Dori said in the dark. "Please. Go."

There was scuffling ahead of Bilbo, Nori and Ori whimpering as they came, and then the groaning of the doors slowly closing, the pummelling of the stone statues growing faint, and then disappearing. Across the room, Bofur managed to get a lantern lit.

Nobody said anything. What was there to say? Nori and Ori clung to each other, Nori turned away from them, but his shoulders were shaking. Glóin stood still and grim, leant against a nearby wall, gripping his axe tightly, his face white behind his fiery red beard. Thorin went to stand with him, face turned down in sorrow.

Bilbo wanted to leave them to rest and grieve, he really did. They had lost more of their family, and the pain in his chest was almost crippling with the pressure of wanting to _scream_ the injustice of it, but. But.

There was no guarantee that they were completely safe, even here, and they were fast running out of time. The longer they lingered, the more of their family were lost, and Bilbo could not bear it anymore. He shook himself sharply, burying the tears and the grief deep and stepped forward, eyes of the remaining Dwarrow swivelling slowly to him.

"What do we have to do?"

 

**\--Then--**

They bolted around the next corner, risking a mad dash over an exposed bridge to the other end, and down a long road-like area. They were tired and panting, but Thorin's pace picked up, though his grip on his sword tightened, the weapon coming up to proceed him as he went, and Bilbo copied the motion, weapon raised, though he rather doubted it would have any effect on great bloody stone soldiers!

"Almost there," Thorin said, pace increasing again, and Bilbo put everything he had into the running, cursing the darkness and his silly stumbling feet. Not much farther and they would be free of the mountain, from the darkness full of danger.

Around one more corner, and Thorin slowed, feet faltering as they approached the blank rock wall ahead, no tunnel or road running off the area. Bilbo swore. If Thorin had gotten them lost...

"It's a dead end. Did we come the wrong way?" Bilbo asked, spinning about himself. What was the point in a tunnel if it didn't go anywhere? "Thorin? Are we lost?"

Thorin was staring at the blank expanse of wall, though, with a look of complete and utter horror, hands only now coming up to pat along the surface, and then pummel it desperately with clenched fists.

"Oh no," he whispered in horror. "Oh no."

"What?" Bofur asked from the back of the group, eyes widening at the sight of Balin whimpering and falling to his knees, collapsing against the wall.

"No," Dwalin said, eyes darting back and forth between his brother and his king. "No, they can't have. They can't have!" 

"Can't have done what?" Bilbo demanded, pushing his way forward to grasp Thorin's shoulder. "What? What is it?"

"We cannot get out," Thorin said bleakly. "The mountain has been closed to the outside. There is no way out."

The group fell silent, nothing but the unsteady rasp of Dwarrows regaining their breath to hear as they all tried to process what Thorin had said.

"What... we're trapped here?" Kíli asked, suddenly, and Fíli gave one harsh, incredulous bark of humourless laughter, and slid down against the wall like Balin, knees pulled up to his chest.

"But," Bilbo spluttered, stalking past Thorin to pat his hand along the sheer rock face, looking for, he did not even know, anything really, anything at all to indicate that they had come the wrong way, that perhaps there was a door, a sign that they were not _completely and utterly doomed._

"But you said that there were barely any that could do such a thing! You said... oh no. You said that you could not reverse it," Bilbo whispered, horrified. 

How would they leave the mountain if there was _no way out of the mountain?_

"I can't," Thorin confirmed raggedly. "I knew the rune spell, and I am Durin's line, so I could lock down our last defence, but... I have no idea how to open it again. Adad said once that it was quite different, and much more difficult. He talked of bearing the weight of the stone on one's shoulders, but, beside that, I know no more."

"Even I do not know how to do either," Balin said softly. "My father knew, but he never told me, us, any of it."

"What will we do now?" Ori demanded, pacing back and forth. "We cannot just sit here. We must keep moving, find another way out!"

"What about the secret door?" Fíli asked tentatively. 

Thorin and Dwalin exchanged long glances.

"Perhaps?" Dwalin said tentatively. "We closed it to hide from Smaug, but it could be that we could open it anytime from this side."

"And then what?" Dori demanded. "We cannot leave the mountain filled with these things! And what of Smaug? He has not come back, but he may if we leave again."

"Perhaps he is dead," Bombur said. "And our dead will become... dead, again, in time?"

They exchanged dubious glances and Thorin shrugged when all gazes eventually turned to him.

"Who can say?" he said. "For now, we concentrate on leaving this place, and then we figure out how to... un-curse the dead."

"Or the gold," Bilbo said absently, and Balin gave him a sharp look that turned thoughtful, and then he hummed and turned away, and looked far more confident than he had been since they had come into the mountain, focused and purposeful.

"We travel more cautiously, now," Thorin instructed, striding forward to face back the way they had come. "We are travelling back into the horde. We'll resume our circular formation, Ri brothers to the left, Urs to the right, Glóin and Dwalin at our rear."

"We're with you, Uncle," Fíli said, before Thorin could relegate him and his brother to the middle, and Thorin's jaw tightened for a moment before he nodded.

"Balin, you and Óin watch Bilbo in our middle." Thorin glared at Bilbo when he opened his mouth, so he shut it again carefully, and Thorin nodded gratefully. "We run."

 

**\--Now--**

His Dwarrows all looked amongst each other slowly. 

Bilbo... was suddenly not very confident in the plan.

"Are you trying to tell me," he said quietly, hands tightening around his darkened lantern, "that none of you know what we have to do now?"

"It was Balin's plan," Thorin protested weakly. 

"But, but...." Bilbo flailed, and his eyes sought out Ori, who just shrugged, eyes red and swollen and looked away. "One of you must have some idea what must be done..."

"Óin had a general idea," Glóin said softly, eyes on the floor, and went silent.

Bilbo's eyes scanned the room, looking for a sign of, of _something_ , but they all just sat there. Like fat useless lumps of uselessness. 

"OF ALL THE _STUPID-!_ " Bilbo suddenly roared, and threw is useless lantern against the wall to shatter. "What is _wrong_ with you all? Has this place stripped every remnant of basic decency from you? I stand here and I do not see _Dwarves_ , I see defeatists and cowards. Ones who would let the sacrifices of their kin amount to _nothing_ -"

"How dare you!" Thorin suddenly bellowed, stepping forward, and Bilbo rounded on him.

"How dare _you?_ " Bilbo bellowed right back. "This whole quest, the lot of you have insisted on throwing yourselves into ridiculously, and often completely needlessly, perilous situations again and again, with no regard for your own safety, all for the purpose of regaining a home for your people. And now that we are _here_ and _so close_ , you all seem to be ready to lay down and whine yourselves to death, and bugger the Dwarrows depending on you to see things through. _Cut it out!_ Get up and make a plan, or _so help me-_ "

Across the room, Bofur started to laugh, chortles that became belly deep laughter, rocking his frame with the force of it. A few of the others deigned to at least grin with him, and nobody faulted Bofur when there were a few tears mixed into his laughing release.

From his place half into an emphatic gesturing complete with aggressively jabbing finger, Bilbo still had his mouth half open to finish berating his pack of lunatics, but Bofur's reaction quite put him out of step. At least they were all losing that horrible blank resignation, so perhaps being interrupted so rudely when he had quite the strop nicely rolling wasn't so bad. 

"Look at you now, eh?" Bofur said ruefully when he calmed, and Bilbo remembered to shut his mouth. "From a timid little thing that fainted in his own parlour at the mere mention of incineration, to the warrior of kings, filled with nothing but determination and courage. Consider me berated into submission, dearest Bilbo."

"Well," Bilbo said, and shifted in place, adjusting his Laketown-leant jacket carefully. "Well," he said again, at the lack of something useful to say.

"Hmm," Thorin said, and abruptly smiled at him, small and crooked, but there, and with something like a growing fire of his own determination. "I suppose then, with a lack of specifics in regards to the plan, we'll just have to get creative."

"Oh dear," Bilbo said, but it was with a great deal of sarcasm and relief, and everybody ignored him anyway, and Thorin started issuing orders.

"Ori, start looking about for any useful texts. Bofur, take your brother and Nori and start lighting this place up properly. Glóin, make sure that door is secure- nothing gets in."

"What about me?" Bilbo asked, as the others straightened and rushed to comply, looking grateful to have been handed purpose again. Thorin rounded on him, and raised an eyebrow at Bilbo in a most annoyingly amused way.

"I thought perhaps you might supervise and yell at us all when we fail to be suitably enthusiastic," Thorin said blandly, and Bilbo glared.

"I'll just go help Ori, shall I?" He very carefully stomped away from the idiot leader of their Company and restrained himself from punching Thorin right in his very big nose. They'd all had some very long days, no need to upset the others by making their king bleed.

 

**\--Then--**

"Damn, buggering _fuck!_ " Dwalin swore at a bare whisper, peering over the crumbling balcony from behind a part of fallen wall, holding a small spy glass to his eye. "There's a _line_ of those things between us and the treasury." He eased back, taking a few steps back along the wall and behind a bit of broken stone wall to where the group was keeping a very careful watch about themselves. "We ain't getting _anywhere_ near that door. We cannot get out that way."

"If we keep the lanterns lit, and keep our eyes on them-" 

"The lanterns never stay lit," Glóin said testily, cutting his brother off with a glare. "And then we'd be amongst them in this unnatural dark of theirs and we'd be dead."

"We can't just sit here," Fíli said, a little hysterically, and Bilbo reached to pat his hand gently, chewing on his bottom lip worriedly. 

"Which direction would you like to go in, then?" Dwalin asked testily. "Cause there ain't any way out that way!"

"Surely there is another way to get to the back door," Bilbo asked tentatively, flinching when it earned him a half dozen scowls- and possibly a lot more, since the rest of them were keeping a very keen eye out. 

"The door, and passage, were secure, heavy with Dwarven magics. They led only to the treasury, and even if we wanted to mine our way into the passage from another direction, it would do no good," Thorin told Bilbo with a great deal of frustration, and Bilbo's face must have turned speculative, because Thorin shook his head almost immediately. "Do you think our defences so flimsy that we would allow outsiders the ability to cut their way into our mountains? That includes digging our way out."

"Some of us could lead them away," Dwalin said gravely. "Leave your way clear to escape."

"Forget it," Bilbo said at the same time as Balin and Thorin shot Dwalin a scowl and something curtly bitten out in their own language.

It might have devolved into an argument of epically whispered proportions, had Balin not hummed thoughtfully, and tilted his head in a way that made all of them stop and look at him abruptly.

"You have a plan?" Bilbo asked hopefully, and Balin shook his head, but stopped and nodded hesitantly.

"I... well, I have an _idea_. It is no plan yet, and I don't know if it is a solution to anything," Balin hastened to add when they all turned hopeful gazes upon him. "This smaller book you lads took from the Library," he said, flapping his hand at Ori until the lad handed it over, and flipping it open to a dog-eared page. He pointed to a section of the text, and Ori darted to look, mouthing through the translation silently. "It mentions a dragon's hoard as a thing stolen and perverted from the purpose Aüle intended of it."

"What of it?" Dori asked impatiently from his place as a watchdog, and Bilbo knew it was grating on him to be prevented from glaring at them all every two seconds.

"The wording of it. Gold as taken from Aüle's grace," Balin said meaningfully, and his face was one that was hoping someone else would make the same leap as he had, to make it less of a leap and more of an obvious conclusion.

"That is very much like the.... _Oh_ ," Thorin said, face lightening.

"Oh, what? What?" Bilbo demanded. 

"Thror had given up the khejmar," Thorin said slowly to Balin, who brightened, and Thorin's whole posture straightened, and his face was once again focused and mind obviously whirring away at the possibilities. It would be nice if he would _share_ , especially as some of the others were _all_ starting to look hopeful.

"The what? _What?_ What is that?" Bilbo asked impatiently, looking between Thorin and a satisfied looking Balin.

"Our Maker," Óin said. "He did not just make us, he made all that makes the basis of this world also, the materials of the world. All the rock, and all the metals and jewels."

"Normally, we would dedicate what we mine and bring from the earth to Mahal, gift it back to our Maker, and to Eru Ilúvatar, so they know that we treasure what they have provided for us, show that we understand it still belongs to them, and to their great purpose," Balin told Bilbo seriously. "It is a practice done by all Dwarrows, everywhere, regardless of clan or location."

"Towards the end of my Grandfather's reign, here, he was mad," Thorin said lowly, eyes dropping, face twisting with something like guilt. "He gradually stopped allowing khejmar services on our gold. He had it refined and made to coins and bars, as one would, and stamped with the Ereborian crest, and his own. Then stored in the treasury, over there. He gifted the gold to himself, even as he dedicated himself to the gold. Many say that is what brought Smaug down upon us in the first place."

"So maybe if we perform services on the treasure to Mahal once more, we will... unpervert it! And the curse will be lifted. And our dead will be dead again- and the mountain may open again!" Kíli blurted with great enthusiasm, and they all turned to stare at him. 

"I was thinking... yes. Essentially that," Balin admitted.

"Aaand... how are we to do that, exactly?" Bilbo asked, as they all started to whisper amongst themselves with excitement.

"We must go to the Zarârgharâf, the Alters of Offering here in the mountain. It is the most secure place in all the mountain, and the way there is not easy," Óin said gravely, and they all turned very solemn once more.

"The most secure point in the mountain," Bilbo said with great speculation. "Like the treasury?"

" _Not_ like the treasury," Thorin said firmly. "Our gold and our jewels, they are precious, but they are _replaceable_. Any good mountain can be mined well, and treasures can be recovered."

"Then why, exactly, did we travel all this way to Erebor for your stinking gold, then?" Bilbo asked, glaring at them.

"Because the Blue mountains are tapped out and unstable," Fíli hissed at him. "They were partially destroyed when Beleriand fell into the sea in the First Age!"

"The Durin's first home in these lands is infested with dark things, and the ancestral homes of the Firebeards and Broadbeams are long decayed and broken and crumbled," Balin interjected, explaining quickly. "Half of what is under those mountains now, is pockets of sea that slip in under land. Durin's mountains to the north are infested with Cold Drakes, and whole armies have fallen trying to reclaim the Grey Mountains from them. Even the Iron Hills to the east are becoming overcrowded and results of mining are dropping. The far Eastern mountains are claimed and all those surrounding Mordor are accursed. There are very few places left for us to go," he finished, patting Bilbo's shoulder gently when his eyes went wide and sorrowful. 

"As I was saying," Thorin said testily. "Gold and jewels are ultimately replaceable, difficult as that is becoming these days. But the secrets our Maker gave to us when we were created, they are priceless, and must never fall into the hands of any other being. Imagine it," he said impatiently, when Bilbo's face was unconvinced. "Our maker was the one to build this world, and only he was successful in creating his own sentient species from nothing but his own thoughts. Only he understood the way Eru Ilívatar had done so when he made Elves and Men. Even Yavanna had to ask Eru to make her Ents, and all other creatures on this land are the result of breeding or perversion. Even yours."

Bilbo scowled, but really, he had no argument there. His people _had_ been the result of 'breeding' as Thorin so crudely put it, between different species, until there had been enough of them to breed exclusively amongst themselves and they had become their own race. They had been bred deliberately of course, though Hobbits had their own beliefs on who had guided the course of love across species to eventuate in their existence, but they were still bred into being. Not made.

"We, Mahal's children, were gifted with many secrets hidden even from other Valar," Glóin said ominously. "Those secrets were entrusted to us with the understanding that we would guard them higher than all else. That is what we keep within the Zarârgharâf."

"The road there is labyrinth-like," Óin told him. "To slow down any that would take that place by force. And here, in Erebor, it is built into the great river-well, the Silver Fountains. Judging by the fact that they river flows to the valley as normal-"

"That's no guarantee," Balin interjected. "The flow could have long adjusted itself."

" _Judging_ by the rivers flowing as normal," Óin said again to Bilbo, "and no tales told of it stopping after Smaug took Erebor, it is possible the Zarârgharâf is still there, and not been collapsed and destroyed when Smaug came. It is likely there was no time, and the keepers would not have been willing to open impenetrable doors to destroy it, when Smaug was already within the mountain."

"How impenetrable?" Bilbo asked suspiciously. Nori turned away from his post and grinned at him.

"Just impenetrable enough," Nori said and winked, and turned back to his watch, only to stiffen.

"Great plan, time to go," he said in a rush, and one of their lanterns started to flicker.

"For Mahals sake, Nori!" Dori hissed, and they all formed up again, Thorin herding them away from the three statues that had appeared when Nori had looked away from his end of the watch.

"So, Nori can get us in this place, but can you get us there?" Bilbo asked Thorin as they picked up their pace to a fast trot again.

"I can," Thorin said, stride quickening.

 

**\--Now--**

"This is a stupid plan," Bilbo muttered, shaking his head. "This is a very foolish, very stupid plan!"

"Do you have a better one?" Thorin demanded, working a length of rope through an anchor that had been crudely hammered into a stone plinth.

"You, you realise this is a plan that sounds like Kíli would come up with, possibly while drunk?" Bilbo demanded, somewhat hysterically. He would have been ashamed at the flinch that caused, but he was a little too worried at this point. "You want to _wash the gold!_ "

"You're the one that said we cannot sit about and wait to die!" Thorin insisted, and moved past him with a huff. 

"I meant that we should die actually possible _fixing the problem_ , but this just seems to be a way to die in a blaze of glory."

"No blaze," Thorin grinned. "More, a tidal wave."

"Unbelievable," Bilbo said, throwing his hands into the air and stalking over to Ori. "After all this time, _this_ is when he chooses to prove he has a sense of humour."

"Nothing left to lose," Ori said with a shrug, fiddling with chisels and the odd mixture he had been spreading into his carefully marked grooves.

Bilbo growled and stormed off for a quiet sulk.

Honestly, it was like they didn't listen to him at all.

If he were being entirely truthful, there wasn't really anything left for them to _do_ but what they were going to. This was the only plan that they had, and like it or not, Bilbo would do his best to help the lot of them pull this off, even if it were looking more and more unlikely that it would work. It was almost _certain_ that they would all die in the trying, but honestly, that had always been very likely on this quest. At least... at least he had the thought that if the bare scrap of chance they had in success paid off, one day, Dwarrows would return to this mountain, and it would be a safe place, a place for them to thrive. 

If they pulled this off. 

"Alright," Bilbo said, taking a deep breath and gathering himself. "Alright. Let's do this stupid, stupid thing."

Another fifteen minutes, and they were all finally in position, and Bilbo looked down on where Thorin was slowly strapping himself into his ridiculous excuse for a safety harness, and tightened his grip around the door frame, far above the intricately tiled floor.

This was the stupidest plan.

Just, the _stupidest_ plan.

Unfortunately, Bilbo was a whole lot better at telling people their plans were stupid than he was at coming up with brilliant plans of his own, and in this case, he had absolutely nothing to offer other than flailing and 'this plan is stupid'. Their logic made a weird sort of sense; dedicate the gold to their Maker, dislodge any curse lying upon the hoard, and hopefully, no more cursed dead chasing them around the mountain. As far as Bilbo was concerned, though, there was no guarantee that the dead would suddenly be _dead_ again, very little evidence to suggest that dedicating the gold to Aúle would dislodge any curses laid on it, and no guarantee that the mountain would suddenly open up and let them out even if the curse _was_ released. 

It might even be a good plan, if the plan did not involve _explosives_ and diverting a _river_ through the part of the mountain _they were currently in_ to bless it, and _flood the mountain they were trapped in_.

The alternative, he had been told, was for Bilbo, as their resident burglar, to sneak back and forth a few thousand times, and bring a sackful of gold each time for them to do their rituals safely. Of course, that way would only take, oh, a few decades or so, if he wasn't brutally murdered by cursed stone Dwarrows the moment he stepped out the Zarârgharâf, of course. He'd snottily mentioned dying of starvation before that, but been told that the well that dropped into the silver fountains would supply them, so if he was happy to live on fish and water for the rest of his natural life, they could do it the 'safer' way.

He'd let them get on with planning their death by drowning in great detail after that.

Bilbo was a learned gentleman, of course he was, and he knew his mathematics; he had enough tenants that he had to be good with numbers to balance the rents and the expenses and manage the estate, but what he had just been subjected to in their explanation had been more than his poor Hobbity brain could comprehend. Thorin and Glóin had assured him that the calculations were a simple thing, that the mountain would flood where they wanted it to, and not for very long, if the secondary charges went off when expected. Bilbo had been stunned to see Thorin and Glóin submitting their plan for _Bombur's_ approval, of all people, as apparently the rotund Dwarf was an engineer of great skill. And then it had become apparent that Bofur had experience with the same basic knowledge required through his Mining work- which was evidently more complex than simply hitting rocks with a pick axe and hoping for shiny- and had jumped into the argument with relish.

It hadn't helped when Nori and Ori had also showed off a ridiculous depth of knowledge of the exact force required to blow each particular type of rock that needed to go. The Ri family, Bilbo discovered, were all Stone Masons, and the mathematics of force and angles was a part of stone work, and the entire argument had become so laden with technical terms and odd diagrams and extreme lengths of scribbled numbers, that Bilbo had found a quiet corner and let himself lay down for a bit, ignoring the evidence that while Dwarrows may be rash and uncouth and socially inept, and really, _really_ quite smelly, they were also exceptionally brilliant mathematicians.

Bugger the lot of them.

So although Bilbo was quite sure this was the _stupidest plan in existence_ , it was the plan they were enacting, because what the heck else were they to do?

Ori and Nori had just spent a good hour chipping lines of their strange runes into the beautiful flooring, carving and copying quite extensively from a few different sources from around the Zarârgharâf, carefully marking out what they said would hopefully bless the water that washed through the holy place and over the inscriptions, and carry that blessing to the gold.

It was such a _stupid_ plan.

Into those lines of what was he had been told was sacred script -that they had asked that he not examine too closely- they had daubed a special mix, and chanted over, or at least, it sounded like chanting to Bilbo. It was some sort of prayer of theirs, a promise, that everything that the water touched was dedicated and promised to their Maker. Bilbo had thought that it would be enough. 

It couldn't be that simple, though, could it.

This was a _really stupid plan_.

"It has to come through here to work, Bilbo," Ori said from his place wedged up beside Bilbo who was _definitely_ not having a panic attack. "It must go this way."

Bilbo ignored him and kept glaring at Thorin.

"He has to be down there," Ori said softly. "You know I volunteered, but-"

"Yes, I was there," Bilbo gritted out. 

"Someone _must_ be in contact with the rune sequence when the river flows over it for it to work the way we want it to," Ori tried again.

"He's _weighted down with rocks_ , Ori, held in with makeshift straps. Exactly how am I to be confident in his odds of survival?"

"He'll be fine," Ori insisted, but he did not sound terribly convinced himself. "We'll all be just fine. All of us."

Bilbo bit his lip and said nothing, knowing that Ori was thinking of his brothers. Truthfully, Bilbo thought there was no point in worrying about the others much at the moment, as they were _most certainly about to all die horribly_.

So he was ever so slightly terrified of drowning. Anybody would be after that disastrous trip along the river from Mirkwood clinging to the outside of a barrel. Anybody would have developed a healthy fear of rushing water.

Except his stupid Company of Dwarves, obviously. 

"Bilbo," Ori said, and he startled, almost losing his grip, and Ori glared at him. "Pay attention Bilbo! Do you remember what you have to do?"

"Hold onto you while you try and open the door so we don't all drown _inside_ the temple," Bilbo gritted out, glaring right back. "Yes, I remember."

That was about the extent of it. Hold onto Ori- who was strapped into the harness with Bilbo- so that Ori could haul the door open faster than it would open on its own, great thing that it was. Oh, and his _stupid_ Dwarrows had decided that _magic_ would be helping Ori with hauling great stone doors open, with some other rune sequence or another. 

(He was aware that it was fairly illogical to believe that the statues chasing them were cursed with Dragon magic, while scoffing at the idea of his Dwarrow having their own mysterious brand of magic, but he was not feeling particularly logical at this point in the proceedings. Magic was such a frivolous, illogical thing to be something Dwarrow would rely on, surely? Not to mention the uncertain looks they all sported when speaking of such magics.)

"Be ready," Ori said then, bracing himself and taking hold of the excessively massive chain he was to yank with one hand, the other dipping into the mix of rusty red paste Bofur had given him before they had climbed up beside this silly door. Because he had to write his magic sequence. Before he hauled three storey high stone doors open by himself. As soon as the gushing waters of death headed towards them and _over_ Thorin. Opening the doors at the last minute, because if they did so too soon, those creatures outside would be on them before they could complete their plan. But not too late, because they might impede the force of the water and it wouldn't make it along the path they were apparently setting for the water to take right up to the gold.

This was most surely the stupidest plan that he had ever heard.

"A count of eight after the first chargers detonate, and we pull the door," Ori said again nervously, talking mostly to himself. "As long as Nori and Bofur managed to get to the spot for the second set of charges, the water will go where we want. Glóin's third set of charges go, setting the river's flow back to normal, and we get out of here in case the Zarârgharâf comes down on us."

Bilbo made a noise that he hoped sounded like an affirmative, wrapping his arms around Ori and bracing himself into the feeble excuse for scaffolding they had banged into the stone wall near the head of the door- a few bits of odd metal scraps scrounged and ripped from features around the Zarârgharâf, bent and hammered into the rock. He'd attempt to reassure Ori, who was repeating the plan again to himself, but he was fairly sure he was incapable of any sound other than a terrified whimper at the present, the weight of what they were about to do rendering him all but frozen in terror. 

Nori and Bofur had actually lowered themselves down the deep narrow well inside the temple, into the terrifying roaring rush of water that was the water that spilled down the mountain as the Silver Fountains, pouring down into the Long Lake, and then flowing on to become the great River Running. All in an effort to leave the Zarârgharâf without leaving through the only door, to go and set a second lot of charges. They were most surely already dead, as the current has swept them away faster than Bilbo had thought possible and Ori and Bombur both had spent long moments weeping over the well their loved ones had willingly gone down, before setting themselves back to their allotted tasks.

This was the most stupid plan in the whole history of Middle Earth. They were all going to die horribly and all for nothing when this plan failed to work.

"This is the most stupid plan in the whole history of Middle Earth," Bilbo wheezed around his terror-constricted throat, clutching Ori as he frantically started smearing runes over the doors to the sound of a deep boom, and a roaring rush, counting as he went. "We're all going to die horribly and all for nothing when this plan fails and doesn't work."

"Hold me!" Ori yelled, abandoning his pot of paste and wrapping his hands in the thick beaten chains. Bilbo spared one terrified look at the _wall_ of water appearing at the far end of the Zarârgharâf, and Thorin, so tiny in comparison, on his knees and still chanting, hands hooked into the deep grooves of their invocation. One last look, and then he buried his face between Ori's shoulders, and clung tight, hooking his ankles around his metal scaffolding as Ori hauled and hauled, muscles straining.

The water was surely the loudest sound Bilbo had ever heard, and he had been subject to some terrifying sounds on this trip. This was louder than a herd of stone giants in the midst of a thunder storm, louder than a horde of goblins descending on them, louder than a battle with orcs, and the bellows of an enraged dragon, louder than his awful escape from the dungeons of Mirkwood clinging to the side of a barrel, and louder than Glóin, Bombur _and_ Kíli's snores combined. 

A second more and the door finally opened all the way, and Bilbo _felt_ more than saw or heard the water crash into the stone door now between them and the water, a second and Bilbo realised their mistake, unhooking himself and Ori from their make-shift harness and throwing the both of them backwards as the door slammed into the wall where they had just been, rocketed forward by the blast of water.

A second to see before he was under, and Ori slipped from his grip, and Bilbo was tumbling head over feet, spun around and around and then dragged along by the water and quite unable to do anything but let the flow carry him. He reached out, blindly seeking purchase, but encountered only brief glancing touches of walls before he was pulled away, moving too fast to reach and hold for anything.

A glancing blow against a wall, and he just barely tucked himself down to avoid beheading himself on the arch of a doorway, and he reached desperately, searching for a handhold, for if he let himself be carried with the water, he would surely not survive it. His hand brushed by something, and his head swivelled, eyes widening, and just barely holding back a scream -that would have resulted in losing the only breath of air he had right now- as several statues went tumbling with his overhead, their bodies and faces twisted and almost agonised, black eyes glinting maliciously at him a moment before they were gone with the water, and Bilbo flailed, reaching and reaching, praying for a miracle.

Ahead, there was a bright flash of red light, and a rumble just barely heard over the roar of water in his ears, and Bilbo spared a second to be astonished that Nori and Bofur had actually made it on their most-likely-to-kill-them quest before the water had him abruptly yanked around the corner that the second set of charges had made, and he did scream this time, before the water slammed him into a wall hard enough for him to go limp, the world far away and quiet for a moment.

Clarity came with the screaming of his lungs, and he flailed afresh, reaching desperately for _anything_ , his fingers brushing something that a second later slipped past his gaze, Bilbo's eyes widening at the sight of first Bombur's long, thick, red braid, followed not long after by the Dwarf himself, who reached for him but was swept away before they could attempt to join hands. 

The edge of Bilbo's vision was starting to blacken and sparkle all at once, the roar in his ears dimming somehow, becoming more manageable, even as Bilbo's flailing started to lose strength. The bottom of his stomach plummeted abruptly, and Bilbo was left with the odd sensation of flying, the world golden and glowing around him.

And then he slammed into a pile of gold, the pressure of the water holding him pressed against the metal for long moments while all Bilbo could do was be limp and try not to breathe more of the dark water in. And then the pressure eased, and he was swirling and tumbling again, and then his body breached the water, and he was met with air, blessed air. 

He retched, water spewing out his chest, and then gulped quickly and greedily, taking one, two, three deep breaths, and a fourth, before the water slammed into him again and he went tumbling, spinning around and around and around, gold and rock and the occasional glimpse of something else that may have been dwarf, may have been dwarf-shaped-statues all swung past him in a dizzying array of flashes, coins and jewels swirling around him like schools of tiny, glittering fish.

And then just like that, it was over. The water dumped him on a pile of gold, and he sat perched for a moment in shock, before he doubled over and concentrated on hacking up a gullet full of water and who knew what else, unaware to care of anything but what he was able to clear from his lungs and stomach for long long moments.

The roar of the water was dying away rapidly, the great gush of water draining down through the gold and out the many doors of the room, though odd golden pools remained all around, some with tiny little shelled creatures swimming frantically within as the water very slowly sunk down, rock dust and silt covering near everything around him. It was a mess.

A long, long time, it felt, he gasped and gasped, until the room was quiet again, save for the drip drip of water off of stone, and the gurgle and clink of piles of gold bobbing and shifting as if sitting on the top of an ocean, and then gently settling into place.

"Well, that went well," he rasped snarkily to himself, and someone coughed a wet sort of chuff of laughter somewhere behind him. 

"Not bad at all," Nori said, and Bilbo twisted as much as his very sore body allowed, to watch Nori haul Bofur to his feet, the miner grumbling and moaning all the way. They had, it seemed, been smart enough to tie themselves together with a short length of rope. If only Bilbo had tied himself to Ori, instead of depending on their harness tied to wall. Then he might know where the lad was.

"That was _horrible_ ," Ori's voice said, nearby, as if summoned by Bilbo's thoughts, and the littlest Dwarrow came clambering slowly out of a sodden puddle of water, the liquid draining away amongst the treasure. "No more water. None ever- I don't care what prison I am in, or what gold needs blessing. No more water. I may never bathe again," he said glumly, squeezing his sodden scarf forlornly. 

"Oh thank goodness," Nori breathed at the sight of his little brother, face melting into one of pure relief, and Bofur absently patted him on the shoulder, even as he himself worked on coughing a few more lungsful of water out.

"LOOK!" Glóin bellowed behind them, and Bilbo near jumped out of his skin, whimpering when the involuntary movement hurt him _everywhere_. "Look what I found!"

What Glóin had found was his own very damp -and dazed- looking brother, and one very unhappy looking Dori- Unhappy, that was, until he caught sight of his brothers, and descending on them in a cloud of clucking, and Bilbo couldn't help a few hoarse chuckles at the sight of Nori's teary admonishment to his older brother to stop fussing (even as he clung tightly to his elder brother), Ori plastered to their sides. At least two sets of brothers had come thought his unscathed, then.

"Dori had miner's paste in his kit," Óin told his brother dazedly, while Glóin patted him down and sniffled happily. "For the lanterns. And there was a little access vent for one of the vent systems, and we blocked it... the thing suddenly filled up with water though...."

" _Nori_ , how many knots did you put in this rope?" Bofur demanded, wrestling with the thing. "I've got to go find Bom. Glóin, you were with him setting charges. Is he still in the Zarârgharâf?"

"I saw him in the water," Bilbo told his friend wearily, managing to climb his way to his feet and stagger over. "Not long before the water spat us into the treasury. He has to be here somewhere."

Nori managed to free himself from his brother huddle long enough to slice through the rope, that was apparently the only thing keeping Bofur upright, as he staggered and fell face down in a pile of damp gold again, groaning miserably.

"Got to find my brother," Bofur said miserably. "And find out if the plan actually worked."

Bilbo had been shuffling forward to try and help Bofur up, but at that, he slowed, and he could see the others freeze a little themselves, all turning and backing into a tight formation as they looked about themselves.

The treasury was dim, but surprisingly, still lit. The majority of the lamps were out, some broken and smashed from the force of the water, and some still swung unsteadily in place, though their paste had evidently been washed away. A few still glowed softly on, however, and for the first time since Bilbo had arrived at this place, it was actually.... easier to see?

The gold did not glow so terribly fiercely, but the shadows of doors and corners did not seem so deep and harbouring strange things. To Bilbo at least.

"Does this place seem.... nicer?" Bilbo asked dubiously, eying a pile of gold nearby that was really quite filthy now, with over a century of accumulated dust and old rock and silt having been washed over it. Funny how things worked, wasn't it?

"It's lighter," Ori agreed. 

"No statues," Dori said slowly.

"I got to find Bom," Bofur said over Bilbo's shoulder, and Glóin nodded.

"We need to stick together, find as many of us as we can. We have to find Thorin."

Bilbo felt his stomach lurch at that, trying very hard not to think about it as he had been. The last he had seen of Thorin was his King being swallowed by a great wall of water, so tiny in the face of such a enormously wild force.

"I came out from about there," he said, clearing his sore throat, trying not to think of all the things the water had washed into his lungs and stomach. "And like I said, I saw Bombur right before the water spat me out onto the gold. He'd be around here somewhere."

As one, they shuffled tiredly forward, gaze sweeping over the odd mountains and valleys that the dulled grimy gold made. Óin mumbled something about cleaning all the gold off, and Bilbo mock glared over his shoulder at the elder dwarf. They'd already tried _washing the gold_ , and he'd thank them all not to try it again. 

A shout above distracted them from their dull eyed looking, and they swivelled to look up, all stock still and wide eyed at the sight of a grumpily exasperated Dwalin staring down at them, two Durin lads tucked under one arm, and his brother and an Ur cousin tucked under the other.

"What in Mahal's forge did you lot _do?_ " he demanded.

Bilbo and, er, his group of Dwarrow stared at Dwalin's little group, who stared back just as silently a moment. Bilbo was not entirely sure what to say to that, but was saved from trying when Bifur yelled and pointed beyond them, worming his way free of the others to hobble for a fallen balustrade and hop down in several jumps onto the gold.

From there, he dashed to haul Bofur along with him, clambering his way across the piles, and Bilbo dithered for a moment, watching the others descend, before he chased after them.

They didn't know if they were safe yet.

"Where is Thorin?" Bilbo heard Balin cry behind him, but he ignored it and headed after the two Urs. He couldn't think of it yet.

What Bifur had seen, evidently, was a long twist of red braid snaking in amongst the gold, and the two did not hesitate to take a hold of the hair like a rope, and haul their kin free of the treasure. Bombur came loose with a great slide of dull clinking and a long groan of dismay. 

"I didn't like that at all," Bombur said with a slight whimper, making no moves to rise from the sprawl his brother and cousin had hauled him into. "I did not like that one bit."

" _Nobody_ liked that," Bofur scolded, clutching his brother to him for a moment. 

"Best plan we had," Glóin said gloomily, and Dwalin glowered. 

"And what fool came up with this plan?" he demanded, though he rolled his eyes almost as soon as the words left his mouth, and nobody bothered answering.

"Where _is_ Uncle?" Fíli asked. "Is he alright?"

"Oh, he'll be around here somewhere," Bilbo said, trying for optimistic, but perhaps falling somewhat flat off the mark, by the way the lads faces fell. He'd be terribly relieved that he could even have the opportunity to _see_ their ridiculous faces again, given that he had thought them well and truly lost, them and every dwarrow in this room, but for the fact that he was terrified that they still had not found Thorin.

"Right," he said firmly, drawing their attention. "We have yet to have any evidence that the curse has been lifted of the statue-dwarrow, and we still need to find Thorin, and make plans to escape this mountain before we starve to death. So, we go that way."

"That way?" Dori asked dubiously, but he and the others all located and redistributed what weapons they had between them, forming themselves up around Bilbo and made for the door.

"Lanterns aren't flickering," Dwalin commented, axe up, his second having been shoved firmly into his brother's hands.

"That could be because they have all descended on our King," Balin said ominously, and they picked up the pace, steadily working their way out one of the doors and to a staircase, the gold spilling in every which direction now, and Bilbo tried not to twitch too badly when they passed an odd fish with hooded eyes flapping uselessly in a shallow puddle of water.

"Dinner," Nori commented idly, and Ori spared a second to thump his brother with a sigh of exasperation. From there, they were mainly quiet, peering around corners, and treading as silently as they could down corridor and up stair. 

Finding Thorin was almost anticlimactic. Almost. He was sat in the middle of a corridor, after all, sodden, but quiet and straight backed. A little worrying, but anticlimactic, that is, until they noticed the statues.

They were strewn everywhere. All along the stretch of corridor ahead.

Haphazardly propped against each other, and upside down in corners, limbs detached and sitting in odd places, and crumbling everywhere. But no longer fierce with glittering black eyes, oh no. Now, the statues had arms held aloft, as if to fend off the flame that had burned them to stone, and still others cowered and huddled from a danger they had not escaped, long passed now. All still. All lifeless and cold.

Bilbo trod carefully closer to lower himself next to Thorin, eyeing the stone babe cradled in Thorin's arms in dismay. 

Thorin said nothing. 

"I think that little lad might be better in his mother's arms," Bilbo said, nodding towards the statue of the Dwarrow in the long skirts, cowering with arms cradled close, and bare. "They're free now. You know that, yes?"

Thorin said nothing still, but nodded, and Dori, sniffling now, came forward for the stone babe, moving it carefully across to slide it amongst the stone arms of its mother.

"Remember the living, yes?" Thorin said with a deep sigh, quirking one eyebrow at Bilbo and smiling slightly, though his eyes remained sad. "Or would you berate me in some other manner?"

"Nope, that was about what I would have gone with," Bilbo sighed, "That, and that we found these horrid boys of yours."

Thorin had one moment to twist suddenly, and take in his completed Company around him before the lads were upon him, and Bilbo retreated to give them some privacy when the lads sounded awfully like they were beginning to sob into their Uncle's shoulder, and Thorin breathed small prayerful endearments in Khuzdul into their raggedy filthy locks.

Bilbo studiously avoided looking back, instead, working his way along the corridor, moving limbs back to statues that seemed to own them, righting them to more dignified positions. He had quailed a bit to see them here at first, and there still lurked in him a cold dread and a cautious suspicion, but as he worked his way down the hall amongst them, it faded further and further from his mind. These were no cursed creatures haunting halls and coming to tear the very souls from intruders. Instead, as he went, more and more he could only find sadness in him to see the faces and twisted forms, and at last he saw what his Dwarrows had seen when they had first come to the mountain.

The poor souls.

If he had not hated the dragon before, he did now, and he felt something fierce in him knot at the thought of what would happen if Smaug returned to the mountain. Would these poor departed souls be possessed and enslaved to Smaug's evil again, or would this be the fate of his friends?

A glimmer at his feet, cradled in the hand of one poor stone hand, and Bilbo frowned, leaning down to pocket the lump half covered in dust. Huh. Well, they'd have to deal with _that_ later.

"We need to see if we can leave," he declared loudly, and quite pointedly, though he kept his gaze away from where he knew all the Dwarrows were wrapped around beloved family. "We must see of Smaug returning is a possibility, and if we may leave or not."

"So we must," Thorin said by his shoulder, and touched one hand very gently to his arm.

The journey to the gate was very different to their last. There was no buzz of success from their victory, for it seemed rather hollow in the face of what remained, and what they had been through, no matter what they had achieved, and they trooped wearily and slowly forward, quiet and contemplative of what they left behind, and what lay ahead.

"I see light," Ori said, a small note of enthusiasm entering his voice, and as one, they moved to a trot, climbing a crumbling stair to an airy hall... that lead to a wide open balcony, overlooking the gates.

"We did it," Bofur said, with no small amount of astonishment, and they trooped eagerly across the hall and stood and stared at the open sky for a moment, all laughing slightly, before staggering forward as one.

Bilbo's first breath of fresh air was... not fresh.

"Ugh, what is that _smell?_ " he demanded, fisting his ragged and damp sleeve over his face.

"Smells like burning Orc," Dwalin said, sniffing deeply.

When they had crossed the barren valley to the Lonely Mountain, it had been empty of all life, dry and dusty and void of anything but cracked blistered earth. None were stupid enough to live in the shadow of a dragon after all.

That had changed.

"Umm..." Bilbo said, eyes wide and bulging at the sight of great armies made camp in the valley below. There were signs of carnage everywhere, from what were indeed great piles of still smoking corpses, and the number of Men, Elves and Dwarrows wandering around with splint and bandages adorning their person.

"What in all of Middle Earth...."

"HO, THERE!" a voice bellowed from below, and Bilbo's gaze dropped to quite the oddest looking Dwarrow he had ever seen. Quite one of the broadest, too, with a red mane that stuck in every which way, a piglet held securely under one arm -a piglet wearing a horned helmet?- and was that a metal _stick_ where the fellow's _leg_ should be?

"HO THORIN!" the odd fellow bellowed again, beaming at them from under some impressive ginger eyebrows to match the intimidating moustache.

"Who... is that?" Bilbo asked faintly.

"That's my cousin Dain," Thorin said in astonishment.

"COUSIN! YOU MISSED QUITE THE FUN, YOU OLD SCOUNDREL!"

"Huh," Bilbo said.

 

**\--Bonus: Then--**

"Thorin," Bilbo said, turning back to where his King stood, resolute, and the others hurried to their positions. "I just wanted to... well. I just wanted to tell you something, before we did this. As it is likely that one, or both of us, will not survive this.

"Tell me what?" Thorin asked absently, checking over his harness-with-rock-weight-combination-thingy again.

"It is something you most likely will not be terribly interested in, being a Dwarf, whereas I am but a Hobbit," Bilbo dithered, nervously clenching his hands by his sides. "And truly, I meant to say nothing, as it was likely even before this that there could be no good come of expressing my feelings. But, like I say, we are most certainly going to die, and I wish to say it just once," he finished with a decisive nod and a sniff.

"Say what?" Thorin asked, his attention now well and truly on Bilbo's fidgety and half-defensive form.

It had been a spur of the moment decision, to do this, because Bilbo really truly was convinced that this was the last opportunity he would ever had to say what he had before decided really aught to stay unsaid. If they were all to die, what could it matter? But here and now, finding the words was proving... difficult, to say the least.

"I just wanted you to know..." his voice wavered, and he dithered for all of about three seconds before he gathered his courage and stepped forward, and reached for Thorin's shoulders, using them as leverage to go to his toes and brush one hesitant kiss across the bewildered-looking King's mouth.

"If nothing else," Bilbo said. "If you have found nothing else on this quest, at least know that I, that. That you are loved. You are a good dwarf, a wonderful person. I thought that you should know, that you are so dearly loved, for something other than an old crown and a mountain full of gold. Just for you, Thorin, dearest Thorin."

He took a step back from the wide-eyed object of his affection, and then another, and shrugged. 

"As poor a gift as it is, from a Hobbit.... You are loved, and you are thought well of. Never forget that," he finished firmly, and nodded decisively.

"Bilbo," Thorin said, but Bilbo was already turning away, hurrying back to his assigned post in this most-likely-doomed plan. 

It was unlikely that anything could have ever come of his silly emotions, even if they were not to be drowned to death, but... 

It didn't really matter now.

 

**\--Now--**

Hours later, safely ensconced in tents within Dain's set-up, the lads still would not let go of their uncle.

Correction, none of the assembled Dwarrows would let go of their most beloved of kin, Bilbo noted, as he silently padded into the tent back from his thorough interrogation by Gandalf and Thranduil (and firm admonishment that he'd had enough to deal with today without letting the Men and the Elves get into a squabble with his Dwarves over _treasure_ , so they'd best behave themselves. He must have looked terribly, as the Big Folk had rushed to assure him that there would be only peaceful talks of the future, they _promised._ After his Dwarrows recovered, _of course!_ ). Finally free of Big Folk and their ridiculousness, Bilbo had walked into what he could only describe as a Dwarven cuddle party, by the look of things.

He grinned softly at the sight of them, all wrapped up around each other, grateful expressions still not abated, and his own smile turned wistful, but he took a deep breath, and a step backwards, making to sneak from the tent before he disturbed the family bonding time with his presence.

"Bilbo," Thorin said lowly behind him, and the Hobbit in question startled, spinning to find the whole tent of Dwarrows straightened and twisting to look at him.

"Sorry!" he said, holding his hands up in apology and taking a casual step backwards. "I didn't mean to, er, interrupt. I'll, ah, just be going, yes?"

He spun again to leave, and was then promptly tackled from behind.

"Ack," he said into the thick mats that made up the layered flooring, and squirmed. Twin whimpers into his shoulders made him still, and then the lads were hauled off of him and he was being passed around the circle, hugged from all.

By the time he had made his way around the circle of his silly Dwarrows a few times, brought to helpless tears over the sight of most of them -and spending a good five minutes alternating between thumping Dwalin and hugging him tight- some of Dain's people had turned up with a meal, and he was safely wedged into Thorin's side, the lads all plastered over Balin and Dwalin beside him.

"I'm not about to forget, you know," Thorin said low and rumbly into his ear. 

"Hmmm?" Bilbo said around his mouthfull, keeping his eyes well and truly on his bowl and away from Thorin's gaze. Surely he wouldn't do this here, and now? With the Company _right here?_

"You love me," Thorin said, thoroughly proving that he really was in possession of little to no tact. Why did he love this lump again?

He wasn't exactly sure of what to say to that, either, especially since his horrible pack of blighters were all quiet and studiously pretending to be most fascinated in their dinners. Ridiculous eavesdropping buggers. A distraction was in order.

Thorin stared at the dusty glowing lump of gem he yanked from his pocket and thrust into the Dwarf King's hands for a long while, face wondering, before his abruptly shoved it in his own pocket and went back to his dinner.

"Don't try and distract me with such things," he scolded Bilbo, scraping his bowl clean and reaching to refill it from the pot in the middle of the tent.

"Did I find the right gem or not?" Bilbo demanded. Honestly, he thought this thing was what Thorin wanted. Surely he could leave off long enough to admire his shiny thing?

"The Arkenstone," Thorin nodded, digging into new bowl of dinner with relish. "But we have more important things to discuss, do we not?"

Damnable Dwarrows. Bilbo reached to refill his own bowl and Bombur's. Thorin was still looking at him with one demanding eyebrow raised imperiously at him, and Bilbo settled for a noncommittal hum in response, that sounded more like a strangled squeak, if he were to be honest with himself.

"It was very rude of you," Thorin mused around a bite of stew, and Bilbo spluttered.

" _Rude?_ "

"Yes, rude! One does not confess great feelings for another, does not kiss them, and then _run away!_ "

"I did not run away!"

"You did."

"I did not. I walked. Quickly."

Thorin snorted loudly. At this stage, none of their audience was even vaguely pretending not to be listening.

"We were in the middle of your idiot Kíli-like plan. I had to get to my spot and be ready for the signal," Bilbo huffed, and scooped the last of his dinner into his mouth with a pout, ignoring Kíli's loud shout of objection that the plan had _worked_ , therefore a Kíli-plan must be a good one and not idiotic at all.

"If you'd just given me a minute to reciprocate-"

"How was I to know that you were to reciprocate, and we had a _plan-_ "

"You're so impatient-"

"Says _you-!_ "

Dori gave a great heaving sob and blew his nose very very loudly, and all eyes swivelled to him.

"It's just so beautiful," he managed around his kerchief, and Nori patted his brother gently on the back.

"It certainly solves the problem of keeping our Hobbit in Erebor," Balin said, rocking in place in satisfaction.

"I wasn't worried about that," Ori said smugly. "He got just as washed by the blessing waters as the gold did. He's ours now."

"Cleverly done!" Bofur exclaimed, looking pleased. Bifur grinned and produced a large fresh roll from someplace and handed it to Bilbo, patting him happily on the back.

"He still might have tried to leave, though," Glóin mused. "This way he'll me more inclined to stay."

"Of course I was going to stay-"

"You were?" Fíli asked, head popping up over Dwalin's shoulder to stare at him wide eyed and wondering. "Really truly really?"

"For realsies?" Kíli chimed in to ask.

"For realsies," Bilbo said with a huff. "At least for now, anyway. I did promise your uncle I would be helping him build a new home here, and a Baggins keeps his promises, you know."

"But you're also staying because you love me, yes?" Thorin asked, peering at him suspiciously, and Bilbo threw his hands in the air in aggravation.

"Well, of course! Need you point that out at every opportunity?"

"I don't understand why you are so aggravated-"

"Well, you're the one being smug about it-"

"There is a difference between smug and _pleased_ ," Thorin huffed. "I am allowed to be happy that you return my feelings."

"Retur- no, no no no, that isn't how it works," Bilbo said, frowning. "I confessed my feelings first, that means if you reciprocate, you return _my_ feelings."

"There's no rule that says that's how it has to work," Thorin argued. "You love me, and I already knew I loved you, so that means you return _my_ feelings."

"Will you still stay knowing he's a complete numpty?" Dwalin interrupted to ask. "And completely unrelated question: the biscuits in the sweets jar in your home..."

"Yes, I shall bake you sweets," Bilbo said with a great deal of feigned exasperation, expression melting into one of wearied fondness. "And I most certainly will be staying, lump of a King or no. But mostly, a lump of a King," he hurried to say, when Thorin's face fell. "As long as there are no more ridiculously dangerous infestations in that mountain to take care of," he finished with a laugh.

Nobody laughed with him, and his chuckle cut off abruptly.

"Well, actually," Kíli said slowly. "When we fell down into the lower levels...."

"You saw the claw marks too?" Balin asked the lads, and half the group nodded.

"What...." Bilbo trailed off, not even entirely sure what he was asking, a shiver working loose when Thorin took one of his hands gently.

"Er, Bilbo. Have you perhaps ever heard of Mine-Dwelling Borgies?" 

 

******DONE FINITE NO MORE THE END******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for Big Bang for this year! For anybody that follows the rest of my fics, yes, I am heavily into Woods and Epic at the moment, though I know not when I shall have chapters for you lovely peeps. I'll get there eventually, I promise!
> 
> Fun fact: I write better at night after my children and hub are in bed and no longer a distraction. When writing the scene with 'Ori' calling Bilbo from down the tunnel, a possum outside took a flying leap at the screened-but-open window beside my head. I almost died of fright and could not look at this fic again for weeks. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Please do let me know what you lovely peeps think of the 'Then' and 'Now' back and forth. Obviously it's too late to change anything, but I would like to know if it was confusing to read, or added anything. And stuff.


End file.
